OBAMA'S DILEMMA – AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  The president is in serious political trouble, as the polls indicate.  Byron York examines one element in a recent poll that has received far too little attention.  It involves the emotional relationship of president to people, something hard to measure, but often decisive in elections.  From The Washington Examiner:

Obama has also taken a fall when it comes to the sometimes hard-to-describe attributes that shape public opinions about leaders. The Journal asked whether people "strongly relate to [Obama] as your president," or whether they related to him somewhat, only a little, or not really at all. The number of people who say they strongly relate to Obama as president has gone from 50 percent on Inauguration Day to 29 percent today, while the number of people who say they don't really relate to him has gone from 8 percent then to 30 percent now. There's clearly a growing alienation with the once enormously popular president.

The people eventually find out the basic truth, even if the media doesn't do much of a job of exposing it.  People can see what's going on around them.

The Republican opportunity this year is golden.  But York makes the same observation that we've made repeatedly in this space, that nothing can be taken for granted:

As strong as the numbers look, smart Republicans are constantly telling each other to calm down and keep working. While the public has soured on Obama and the Democratic leadership, Republicans can't just bash the opposition.

Any number of things can happen between now and November to improve the Democrats' chances, including a military confrontation that the president actually handles well, hard as that is to believe.

Republicans must have a smart, attractive program to go with smart, attractive candidates.  We await the program.

June 25, 2010