Many people seem to forget that Obama was beatable in 2012. He had an Approval rating in the 40s and so any Republican had a good chance to beat him. So to say that Obama is #unbeatable in 2012 is ridiculous beyond belief. Mitt Romney squandered his chances in 2012 but other candidates did have better chances (Paul for one), though Santorum and Romney were not as good for winning.
He was certainly not unbeatable, but there are different kinds of "approval ratings in the forties." If it's say 41-59 the odds against a president being re-elected are pretty great. But if it's in the mid-to-upper forties, with approval and disapproval about equally balanced, the president has a good chance of re-election--just as GW Bush did in 2004.
Consider Bush's ratings in May-August 2004;
2004 Aug 23-25
49 47 4
2004 Aug 9-11
51 46 3
2004 Jul 30-Aug 1
48 49 3
2004 Jul 19-21
49 47 4
2004 Jul 8-11
47 49 4
2004 Jun 21-23
48 49 3
2004 Jun 3-6
49 49 2
2004 May 21-23
47 49 4
2004 May 7-9
46 51 3
2004 May 2-4
49 48 3
http://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx
These are very similar to Obama's ratings from 2012:
http://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx
(Bush had higher job approval ratings in
early 2004 than Obama had in early 2012; but that was just after Saddam Hussein had been captured and before the Spring 2004 uprising
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency_(2003–06)#Spring_2004_uprising)
Objectively, therefore, Obama's odds of re-election were about the same as Bush's. Indeed, most presidents get re-elected, 1980 and 1992 being exceptional in that respect. Truman, GW Bush, and Obama were all re-elected with job approval ratings in the forties for much of election year.
Now I know some people will say, "Yes, Truman should have been defeated and GW Bush should have been defeated and Obama should have been defeated, but Dewey, Kerry, and Romney all ran bad campaigns." Maybe. But it does seem odd that incumbent presidents keep getting such "weak" opponents (who were not necessarily regarded as weak before they lost...) Maybe there is something deeper, more structural at work here?
My own view is that Romney did about as well as a Republican presidential candidate could be expected to do in 2012. One indication of this: "Still, Romney
ran ahead of almost all of his party’s Senate candidates — and sometimes well ahead. In Nebraska, Ohio and Arizona, he outperformed the Republican Senate hopefuls by more than two points. In six other states, he outperformed them by more than six points. So whatever Romney’s flaws were, he was still able to do better than other members of his party."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...858eba91ced_story.html?utm_term=.2e71adfc9f20