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Now of course, if things improve, this analysis will change. But you also have to factor in the possibility of things getting even worse: a possible collapse in Europe or, more likely, a huge spike in gas prices over the summer.

3) The president’s domestic agenda is unpopular. Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, the DNC’s vice chairman, recently stated that Obama’s national message “will be that he passed the health-care law, single-handedly saved the car industry, ended the wars and has had 22 months of job growth.”

Selling this will be a very difficult task. Almost two years after the health care law passed, only 37.6 percent of Americans are in favor of it, one of the lowest measurements RCP has found. The 22 months of job growth is a nice statistic, but such an argument, made vigorously, risks sounding out of touch to a public that believes that the economy is still in dire straits.

As for the auto bailout, we haven’t had much in the way of recent polling, although close to 60 percent of Americans fairly consistently opposed the bailouts when they were pending before Congress, and a January 2010 Allstate/National Journal Poll suggested only 34 percent of Americans believed the administration’s actions with the auto industry had helped the economy. As for the stimulus, Obama’s other major domestic achievement, in January 2010, 75 percent of Americans said they believed a majority or more of stimulus funds were wasted. Rybak doesn’t mention that achievement, but Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich will.

The only clear winner here for the president is ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem is, most voters don’t care that much. In the past year, I couldn’t find a single poll where more than 9 percent of adults named the wars as their top priority; that distinction consistently belonged to the economy.

In other words, Obama doesn’t have a major popular domestic initiative to run on. The foreign policy issues where he is strongest are of low salience. This is not where a politician wants to be nine months before Election Day.

4) Head-to-head polling. This is of limited utility this far out, but it is worth a brief mention. Obama leads Romney by only a 47.5-45.1 margin in the RCP Average. His lead against Gingrich is large, but he’s still only at 51.9 percent, about where his approval rating maxed out after bin Laden was killed.

State polling has been sparse, but let’s consider the following RCP Averages: Romney leads 48.8-42 in New Hampshire; 45.3-45 in Florida (all very recent polling); and 46.6-42.8 in Virginia. Add in the McCain states plus Indiana, and that’s 237 electoral votes -- 33 shy of a victory. The president leads, but is at or below 47 percent, in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, and Nevada. That’s a dangerous place for any incumbent.

Now, some of this polling was taken when Obama’s approval rating was a few points lower in the fall of 2011, but there are two countervailing points to be made. First, these polls are usually of registered voters or adults (or in PPP’s case, “voters,” a unique variant measuring only those who voted in 2004, ’06 and ’08). Both types of polls are typically a few more points Democratic than the actual electorate.

Second, and of more concern to the president, Public Policy Polling found that in 2011, Obama’s job approval rating among undecided voters in its polls was only 18 percent. In other words, these voters will be inclined to break for a semi-credible GOP nominee. Given that the president is currently well below 50 percent in many of these polls, that’s a huge problem for him.

5) We’ve heard it before. Finally, most of the arguments for why the president is electable should sound vaguely familiar. They were mostly made in 2010 and offered as reasons why the election wouldn’t be so bad for the Democrats. Here’s the president a few days ago, arguing that the 2012 election would be a choice, not a referendum on his presidency. Here’s David Axelrod, making the exact same argument in 2010.

Here’s an article in Foreign Policy, arguing in part that Republicans are just too unpopular and radical for the American people to hand them the election. Here’s, well, me making a similar argument in 2009.

Here’s Ezra Klein observing that 54 percent of voters still blame Bush for the state of the economy (though in fairness, he notes some limitations to this poll). That’s actually an improvement from 2010.

And so it goes. At least Obama hasn’t resurrected the “Slurpee analogy.”

Conclusion

So what happens? Arguably, we’ve never seen a situation like this before, when an unelectable incumbent draws an unelectable opponent. It’s kind of an “immovable object vs. irresistible force” scenario. In theory, neither candidate should be able to win this election, but in practice, someone must.

At the end of the day, most analysts agree that incumbent elections are primarily referenda on the incumbent party, which helps explain how some normally unelectable candidates like Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Minnesota Sen. Al Franken won elections in swing states against very good opponents, despite deep concerns about their credibility.

But at the presidential level, we probably don’t have much direct experience to draw upon. We should, however, keep in mind that FDR, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were all considered unelectable at various points in their campaigns. FDR had been part of a ticket that lost by 26 points in 1920; Carter was too inexperienced; Reagan was too old and conservative; Clinton was running at a time when people cared if you had smoked marijuana, cheated on your spouse, and avoided the draft.

While we tend to attribute these presidents’ victories to their outsized political skills, I tend to think that’s a bit of the tail wagging the dog. They’re considered great politicians because they won, and not the other way around. (If you doubt me on this, examine assessments of Reagan’s political skills in 1982, or Clinton’s in 1993.) Had the economy not floundered in 1980 and 1992, and not roared ahead in 1984 and 1996, we would remember them as cautionary tales, not maestros.

In any event, I wouldn’t put Obama in Carter/Hoover territory, unless Europe collapses. But then again, Republicans don’t need to reduce his share of the vote to 40 percent. Can “unelectable” Romney or even Gingrich hold him to, say, 48 or 49 percent? I wouldn’t say they will, but there’s plenty of evidence that suggests they can.