July 21, 2011 09:30 PM UTC

Rick Perry to the Rescue? Not So Much

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• by: Colorado Pols

From our friends at “The Fix“:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is the talk of the 2012 Republican presidential race at the moment but, according to a new Washington Post/ABC poll, he fares no better in a head-to-head matchup with President Obama than several longer-shot candidates in the field.

Perry trails Obama 53 percent to 40 percent among registered voters in a hypothetical 2012 matchup – a margin roughly equivalent to the 55 percent-to-40 percent edge Obama enjoys over Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and the 52 percent to 42 percent advantage he holds over Texas Rep. Ron Paul.

Mitt Romney performs significantly better when matched with Obama; Obama takes 49 percent to 47 percent for the former Massachusetts governor.

The numbers suggest that, while Perry is clearly the flavor of the month among Republican insiders, he does not yet have the sort of national profile with GOP voters that would distinguish him from the other candidates seeking to be the Romney alternative in the 2012 field. A look inside the numbers affirm the sense that Perry – along with Bachmann and Paul – are performing as any generic Republican matched against Obama would.

So apparently Perry isn’t any more likely to beat President Obama than most of the rest of the GOP field. But perhaps Perry isn’t talking about running for President of the United States…maybe he’s planning a campaign for President of Texas?