Did any of you read the entire OP, or are four sentences beyond your attention span? Obama's approval rating has dropped 10 points since the election, so the assertion that he would do as well or better in an election today than he did in November is asinine.
Yours is a wholly unsophisticated view of political science. Got your attention?
GWB looks good now because he's not in office making decisions that will piss off 50% of the electorate. A president's approval rating during normal times (absent a war or depression) usually hovers around 50% or so. That he has dropped only ten points in a second term during a scandal and a lot of other controversies is likely a credit to his inherent popularity.
If the election were held today and Romney had to run a campaign for 4-6 months, his "plans" would be highlighted and compared to those of Mr. Obama's and he would lose again by a very wide margin.
Really, are you this unaware of politics?
Eventually Americans will get tired of a zombie economy and throw out the people that had eight years to fix it and didn't.
They do that with perfectly fine economies too...incumbent fatigue is a real problem for the Dems in 2016.