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According to FOX News, a recent poll they conducted demonstrates that “The 2012 presidential race begins in earnest on Nov. 3 — the day after the upcoming midterm elections — and President Obama looks to be in trouble at the starting gate.”

You see, FOX News conducted a poll and the results say that 54% of voters would not vote for President Obama. They say this is up from 45% is January and 31% in April of ’09. Only 39% would vote to re-elect Obama, down from 43% in January – “a dramatic drop from the 52% who felt that way in April” they say.

It’s a gripping headline, but there isn’t much there for conservatives to crow about. If you look at the numbers, Obama isn’t in all that much trouble.

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The poll shows that “only” 75% of Democrats would vote for Obama today, down from 87% at the start of his term, hardly a dramatic fall from grace. Seventy-five percent would be enough to pass legislation in California and that is saying something. The number of Democrats who would “definitely” vote for Obama has dropped from 69% to 41%.

There is supposed to be trouble because the FOX News poll shows that 40% of Obama’s ’08 voters would “definitely” vote for him again while the figure stood at 64% in April.

Independent support, the key to any election and essential to Obama’s victory (along with Republicans who voted Democrat), is down to 32% “from a high of 43% in April 2009.” Fifty-seven percent of independents would “vote for someone else.”

The FOX News poll also points to dissatisfaction with the VP, people saying they’d prefer Hilary Clinton to Joe Biden.

All that sounds ominous but even FOX News admits that “even with all the negatives, in hypothetical head-to-head match ups, Obama tops each of the Republican candidates tested.”

Ouch. It had to hurt to admit that.

Obama vs Mike Huckabee: 43-40 percent

Obama vs. Chris Christie 42-30 percent

Obama vs. Jeb Bush 45-37 percent

Obama vs. Sarah Palin 48-35 percent

Obama vs. Mitt Romney 41-40 percent

FOX News claims the gap is narrowing, however, saying that “The president tops an unnamed candidate from the Tea Party movement by 11 points (43-32 percent), which is a much narrower spread than earlier this year when Obama’s advantage was 25 points (48-23 percent).”

Things look even rosier for Obama if an independent candidate is introduced: “Obama gets 40 percent to Palin’s 28 percent, with independent candidate New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg capturing 18 percent.” And even if Hilary were the third candidate Obama would still triumph with 30%, Palin with 29% and Clinton with 27%. Not saying much for the alleged star power of Palin, is it?

Despite the headline, the poll results paint a far less rosy picture for Republicans than for Democrats. Other polls demonstrate that there is nothing absurdly out of line with Obama’s approval figures for the point he is at in his presidency. Other poll numbers show that all but the Republican base shun Sarah Palin whose popularity has sunk to that of BP. Neither Mike Huckabee nor Jeb Bush has any star power and the rest of the country does not seem likely to elect a third Bush after our recent experience with the last one.

And Romney, who did best vs. Obama in this poll? If you will remember back to 2008, Romney was considered a “front-runner” for the Republican ticket. He raised more money than any other Republican primary candidate. On February 13, 2007, he formally announced his candidacy and on February 7, 2008 even before McCain stormed to victory on Super Tuesday, he dropped out. In other words, Romney looked then too like the best the GOP could throw at the Democrats and his candidacy amounted to nothing.

Romney calls the Obama presidency an “abject failure” which is a fitting description of his own presidential campaign.

In the end, FOX News’ use of the misleading headline: “Fox News Poll: Only 39 Perecent (sic) Would Vote to Re-Elect Obama in 2012” demonstrates that FOX News is in more trouble than Obama and that they need a new spell-checker.

This was a “national telephone poll” conducted for FOX News by Opinion Dynamics Corp from a whopping 900 registered voters on September 28 and 29. They say the poll has a margin of error of +/- 3%.

Full poll results.