The new CW: Obama's going to lose

If the election were held today, the Obama-Biden ticket would not win the 270 electoral votes required to hold the White House. The coalition that helped elect the President—fired-up liberals, independents, business interests, a friendly media contingent—has been disbanded. … Democrats on Capitol Hill privately display nearly as much disdain for the Administration as their GOP counterparts, complaining about both its incompetence and its ideology. … Obama believes the GOP is so in thrall to conservative purity that independent voters will come back to him when they go shopping next fall … It will be very hard for Obama to repeat his ’08 wins in Florida and Indiana, and he has challenges in Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina. An Obama landslide seems out of the question at the moment, but he can still pull off a squeaker. As he has said, he’s currently the underdog.