The Hill News

As of right now it looks like the 2012 presidential election could go either for President Obama or the Republican nominee, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday.

"Anybody would be foolish to not to say that this presidential election next year is going to be extremely competitive and at this point it could go either way," Lieberman said while speaking on Illinois radio station WLS 890.

Lieberman's comments come as President Obama faces record low approval numbers in a recent Gallup tracking poll. Gallup found that 39 percent of Americans approve of how Obama is handling his job as president, a new low for Obama whose approval numbers had never previously dipped below 40 percent.

On Monday Obama began a three-day Midwest bus tour where so far he's spoken at town halls in Minnesota and Iowa. Obama plans to make stops in a number of states on the tour including Illinois in addition to Iowa and Minnesota.

On the bus tour O! bama said that he planned to unveil a job creation and deficit reduction plan but also warned that Congress would need to help "get it done."

"And if they don’t get it done, then we’ll be running against a Congress that’s not doing anything for the American people, and the choice will be very stark and will be very clear," Obama said.

Obama's aggressive comments suggest he's trying to capitalize on record low approval ratings of Congress. Even as Obama's approval ratings are low, Congress's are worse. On Tuesday Gallup re! leased a poll which found that just 13 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, a tie for the all-time low approval of Congress in the Gallup poll.