Looking toward the crucial 2012 presidential race, three things are becoming increasingly clear:

1. A Republican candidate who can unite the Tea Party and the Republican establishment can beat President Obama. Recent polling by CNN and Rasmussen shows that the vast majority of voters who have a strong feeling about President Obama’s performance disapprove of it; that there’s not a single major issue on which the majority of Americans think he’s strong; and that the overwhelming majority of Americans say he’s not a good leader, with 40 percent saying he’s downright a “poor” leader. Moreover, Obama’s signature legislation, whose fate will likely coincide with his own, is unpopular, even in polling that grossly oversamples Democrats, and most Americans want it repealed.