Although this doesn't say much about the taste and discrimination of the American public, it does challenge the meme - admittedly found more on the right than anywhere else - that Obama is simply too unpopular an incumbent to be re-elected President.
The statistics come from realclearpolitics.com:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/...
For instance, Obama's average approval rating for July 20, 2012 is 47.0% approval to 47.6% disapproval.
Bush's numbers on July 20, 2004 were 47.5% approval, 48.1% disapproval. In fact, Bush's approval numbers didn't move back up into the low 50s range until September, after the Republican Convention. Bush had an approval rating of 49.5% and a disapproval of 46.8% on November 2, 2004, the day of the election, when he won the popular vote by 50.7% to Kerry's 48.3%.
Just as a point of comparison, the two presidents who did NOT win re-election in the past 30 years had much lower approval ratings (albeit in June of their re-election years, though that's close enough). According to Gallup, Carter had an approval rating of 31% and Bush, Sr. 37%.
So don't let anyone convince you that an incumbent president can't be re-elected with approval ratings in the high 40s, right where Obama's are now.