With a little more than a year left before for the next presidential election, our current commander in chief’s approval numbers have fallen to record lows.

According to the nonpartisan Gallup research organization, as of late August, only 38 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s job performance while 55 percent give his handling of the office a thumbs down.

Many factors have influenced this outcome, but put simply Obama’s economic policies have not worked.

Priming the pump (spending taxpayer dollars to “create jobs”) while increasing the national debt to over $14 trillion has resulted in Standard and Poor’s downgrading America’s AAA bond rating and uncertainty on “Main Street” as well as Wall Street.

The debt was $10.6 trillion on the day that Mr. Obama was sworn into office and now, according to the Treasury Department’s latest calculation, is over $14.639 trillion.
Obama now has the dubious distinction of piling on more debt than any other U.S. president in the history of the Republic.

Adding to the president’s problems, in recent weeks when matched up against former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts or current Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Obama is in a statistical dead heat.

This leads me to the Republican presidential primary.

After sitting on a lead and employing a Rose Garden strategy for the majority of the summer, Romney found himself in late August trailing in the polls, stung by Perry’s insurgent candidacy.

Perry announced his run for the presidency from South Carolina the day of the Iowa straw poll. His entrance into the race minimized Rep. Michelle Bachman’s straw poll victory, and he catapulted to the front of the pack for 2012 GOP nomination.

By all accounts, Perry and his team had great rollout.

But then, September brought about three Republican presidential debates. To be blunt, those debates have been a disaster for Perry.

In all three, Perry appeared unfocused, defensive, and ill-prepared.

His “my way or the highway attitude” did not go over well with straw poll attendees and potential primary voters.

His repeated characterization of Social Security as a “ponzi scheme” most certainly had an impact on the recent GOP Florida straw poll, where he was beaten soundly by Tea Party favorite Herman Cain.

Perry’s approval of charging in-state college tuition rates for children of illegal immigrants in Texas, along with his refusal to support completion of a fence along the Mexican border definitely have hastened his decline with the GOP base. The way he has continued to defend of his executive order mandating HPV vaccinations to minor girls only worsened his standing with the Republican faithful.

Clearly, Perry and his campaign team are in damage control mode. In my opinion, Perry has very little time to make a course correction.

Republicans are searching for a candidate to defeat Barack Obama. “Electability” is the operative word of the day.

The obvious beneficiary of the governor of Texas’ missteps has been Romney — who has been well prepared, confident, and yes — presidential.

What seems clear is that unless Perry has a dramatic change of fortune, Mitt Romney is likely to be the Republican standard-bearer in 2012.

Marc Rotterman worked on the national campaign of Reagan for President in 1980, served on the presidential transition team in 1980, worked in the Reagan administration from 1981-84, is a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundation, and a former member of the board of the American Conservative Union.