Excerpt

The following is from the September 15, 2011, edition of The Christian Science Monitor. SMU Political Science Professor Cal Jillson provided expertise for this story.

Perry vs. Romney: Does it matter who Obama faces in 2012?

 

September 24, 2011

By Linda Feldmann
Staff Writer

Suppose for the moment that the 2012 election is just a few months away, and President Obama still has a fighting chance at reelection.

Unemployment is creeping downward, though still not far from 9 percent. The economy is still growing, barely. And Mr. Obama has managed to nudge his job approval ratings up near 47 percent.

Will it matter whom the Republican Party nominates? In a word, yes. . .

Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, frames Obama’s prospects this way: “He’s eminently beatable, and Republicans smell this. But in electoral politics, it’s always compared to whom.”

Read the full story.

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