By Connor Martin ’13

Barack Obama has led the United States for two and a half years now, during which time his administration has accomplished several extremely important victories and suffered harsh defeats. Over the next 17 months, all of Obama’s efforts will be evaluated as he runs for re-election. Even if the 2012 presidential race is his to win, Obama and his team can’t take anything for granted.

      During Obama’s presidency, he signed and therefore established the health care law, (“Obamacare”), set a withdrawal date for troops in Afghanistan, signed the bill that lifted the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy in the military, nominated two Supreme Court Justices, and authorized a mission that ultimately led to the demise of Osama bin Laden. So far, Obama certainly can make the case that he has done a lot. In terms of his approval rating, he has stayed pretty consistent around 50 percent approval according to Gallup polls nationwide. He has only dropped about 15 percent in approval since he took office, which has generally the same dip that happened to most of the last 12 presidents. Eight of those presidents won re-election.

      Nevertheless, there are many reasons why whichever Republican candidate that ends up taking on the Democratic giant could win. Obama promised an entire group of policies that have not yet been fulfilled. Obama promised to fix the economy, but yet the debt ceiling has risen, the economy is still suffering through the recession and unemployment has plateaued at around nine percent. His health care bill that was supposed to solve the problems of millions of Americans has only caused controversy so far, as its legality is expected to be decided by the Supreme Court. On top of that, Obama has not fulfilled his promises to shut down Guantanamo Bay, unite Republicans and Democrats for a bipartisan Washington and reform immigration laws. With all of those issues still weighing him down, many of his supporters have been left disappointed.

      In a sharply partisan climate in which nearly half of Americans will vote for Obama and nearly half will vote for his opponent, the 2012 race could well be decided by the ever shrinking pool of voters who are still undecided.