Despite his popularity dropping below 40%, Barack Obama stands an excellent chance of being re-elected. And, there are three reasons for that:

1. Michelle Bachmann: representative of the bat****-crazy wing of the GOP, the Tea Parties. The unfavorables for that group have doubled since January 2010 [1], and there's very little difference between her and them. Certainly, some of her positions aren't that bad, but others are and she's far to the right of the U.S. as a whole. Her teaparty-style economics-related ideas are so bad that the Democrats and the media might even be willing and able to show how her ideas are wrong in addition to simply engaging in personal smears and gotcha. In any case, if she's the GOP nominee the only way Obama could lose is if he declared sharia law while burning an American flag with one hand and strangling a bald eagle with the other.

2. Mitt Romney: The GOP would be in better shape with him, but he has several issues. He's patrician but not in the FDR way; it would be easy for the Democrats to portray him as out-of-touch and mostly unconcerned with most Americans' experiences. The Democrats would also associate him with Big Business and part of the problem rather than the solution. And, of course, he's a Mormon. Despite denials, expect the Democrats to portray him as "weird", and their little helpers to engage in religious bigotry (which, per them, is OK for some religions). Examples here, here, and here. The media will simply "ask questions" about his religion, pulling out all the stops to separate him from evangelicals and others. At the same time, turnout by teapartiers would be reduced due to Romney's status as (per them) a RINO who pushed Obamacare on Massachusetts. If Romney's the GOP nominee, Obama's chances of being re-elected are between 85% and 95% depending on the economy.

3. Rick Perry: America just isn't ready for Bush 3. Perry's ideas are Teaparty Lite and as with Bachmann the media and the Democrats might even be willing to show how those ideas are wrong. Perry will run on his jobs record, which doesn't seem to be keeping up with Texas' population, which was helped by Obama's and Bush's stimulus plans, and where many of the jobs are low-wage (link). The media will lie and pretend that Perry is a hardline far-rightwinger on immigration, when he's much more Bush-like. The media's lies might cause some Hispanics not to vote for him. Meanwhile, the actual truth about Perry and immigration might cause some in the teaparties base not to vote for him. Teaparty voting will further be reduced due to Perry's involvement in the TransTexas Corridor and the TTC's relationship to the NAFTA Superhighway and the North American Union (note: make sure and see that last link if you've been trained to mock concerns about the NAU). If Perry's the GOP nominee, Obama's chances are slightly better than Romney.

Despite Obama's growing unpopularity and the struggling economy, most people are going to consider him a safer alternative to those above.

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[1] CNN poll: i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/08/09/poll.aug9.pdf
Tea party unfavorables were 26% January 22-24, 2010 and 51% in August 5-7, 2011. Their favorables have been stuck in the 30s during the same period, and those who had no opinion fell slightly in that period. Most of the change has come from those who said they'd never heard of them. In other words, the more people know about them, the more they don't like them.