Originally Posted by kane

To me Obama's reelection will hinge primarily on the economy. Yes, this will help him and he will likely see a nice jump in his approval numbers. Maybe he can capitalize on that jump and turn things around, but the election is a long ways off.

If we get to September 2012 and unemployment is around 6% or less Obama will be nearly impossible to beat unless there is some kind of major scandal involving him. He will be able to stand in front of the country and say, "I fixed the economy and created millions of jobs, I got healthcare reform passed, I passed budgets that will lower the deficit (assuming that he and the republicans can work together to get budget passed that does this) and I got Bin Laden." That will be a pretty difficult line to compete against.

However, if the economy is still doing poorly, he could be in trouble because people will be happy Bin Laden was killed, but they will care more about having a job.