Can he get reelected?

President Obama's like the guy who goes camping in Alaska with another guy, and one night a grizzly bear sticks his head in the tent, roaring, and Obama starts putting on his tennies, and the other say sez "Why are you putting your shoes on? You can't outrun a grizzly." And Obama replies "I don't have to outrun the grizzly..."

In polls, Obama loses to a generic Republican opponent. But he wins compared to every actual candidate.

And remember the propensity of Americans who are independent (36& of the electorate) to vote for a candidate of the opposite party to whichever one controls the legislature.

Honestly, at this point none of President Obama's initiatives matter, because we all know the Republicans will nix every single one of them. All he can do is stop the Republicans from handing us the fiscal and national disaster that they inflicted on us last time around.

So what matters is his veto pen. And even if he wields that half-heartedly, it will beat a GOP president's rubber stamp of anything a GOP legislature does.

And the president during the next term will almost certainly be nominating one or more Supreme Court justices, replacing one of the remaining aging liberals. The conservatives are mostly younger and healthier.
And given the one-sidedly corporatist tilt of the court, that will matter to independents.

Lastly, the association of American presidential scholars rated Obama #15 of all presidents--below Republicans like Eisenhower, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt, but vastly above Bush II (6th from the absolute bottom) and slightly above Reagan (#17). So we could do a lot worse--like Governor Perry, whose handsome, presidential facade and interaural vacuum remind one of Warren G. Harding...or Governor Romney, who never met a principle he wouldn't abandon for electoral advantage....