Well, Obama's definitely in, in spite of (and maybe because of) the focus on Republicans taking over the House. He's at 50% according to Gallup and Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. Compared to Gallup numbers for presidents in their 22nd month in office, Obama's right in the middle -- the top being Roosevelt and the bottom being Reagan. George W. Bush did better, Clinton did worse. I guess you could say 22nd-month ratings are exactly predictors, though Obama seems to be in a safe harbor.
So this tells you nothing about 2012. You can extrapolate a bit more from the numbers at the end of a president's third year, but even that's iffy.
I've been reading Kloppenberg's (important) book, just out, about Obama and pragmatism. My guess is that if Obama allows us a better view of how he's thinking and why he makes certain decisions, his numbers will improve. But I'm not at all sure he's likely to do that.
