Can Obama win?

The numbers aren't looking good:

For the first time, the poll found that a majority of adults, 52 percent, said Obama should be voted out of office while 43 percent said he deserves another term. The numbers mark a reversal since last May, when 53 percent said Obama should be re-elected while 43 percent said he didn't deserve four more years.

Obama's overall job approval stands at a new low: 44 percent approve while 54 percent disapprove. The president's standing among independents is worse: 38 percent approve while 59 percent disapprove.

With numbers like these, Obama can't win and the Dems know it.

Right now, the best they can hope for is not a Democratic win but a Republican loss. The conservative base has fallen out of love with the various Republican candidates; the general electorate will probably do the sighing eye-roll when the eventual nominee is announced.

To independent voters, only Romney is likely to seem non-annoying, or at least not-so-very-frightening. That's why the party's leadership wants to clear everyone else out of the way. But the rank-n-filers -- who know full well that Romney is all make-up and no face -- insist on someone else.

Unless and until a suitable "someone else" shows up, the Dems are going to think that they have a chance. Obama can't win, but maybe Gingrinch will lose; maybe the public will hate the Republican candidates even more than they hate Obama. So goes the Democratic thinking.

The Republicans' short-term disarray gives them a long-run advantage. If the GOP could field another Reagan -- a genuinely popular leader who stands out from the rest of the crowd -- the Dems would understand that they have no choice but to switch horses.

I still dream of a new horse. Hillary may be too tainted by her service with Obama. Wesley Clark...?