Bin Laden Dead- What Happens Now?

[Mechaman]

If 9/11 got Bush's approval up to 90%, I can't see how killing Osama won't result in a similar success.

You can't?  Don't you think this is going to be seen as a much smaller scale event than 9/11 itself?  I really don't see why this kind of thing would be expected to boost the prez's numbers by 20 or 30 points.  Bin Laden's death is not a political earthquake, like 9/11 was.

This.

By the time Obama became president it would've already been too late for the death of Osama Bin Laden to result in "unanimous approval" from the American people.  By now we are way past the euphoric AMERICA!  F*** YEAH! state we were in from late 2001-early 2005 (being real generous here).  The American people are way too disillusioned with the military industrial complex after the years of mismanagement and "interventionist overkill" that has happened under Bush for there to be any widespread "rally around the flag effect".  A lot of Americans, especially Republican partisans who would've disapproved of Obama no matter what, would feel that Osama was killed 5 years too late.
Will this help Obama's approval ratings?  Of course it will, but I would be surprised if it's over 70%.

[Mechaman]

I think that the election could be a lot like 1992, but different.

Obama has a lot of foreign policy successes. However, the republicans turn the campaign on the economy and not foreign policy. Therefore, the republicans win.

This could very well be the case.
George HW Bush had approvals in the low 90's after the success of Operation Desert Storm only to lose the election a year later with less than 40% of the popular vote (granted, there was a significant third party candidate but still).
The main problem with Bush Sr. was that the huge momentum surge that he enjoyed in late 1991 wasn't capitalized on for the long term as well as making a BIG MISTAKE by making a "No New Taxes" pledge.  Obama has certainly failed to keep some of his campaign promises, but so did Reagan.  Does that mean Obama will win a massive 480 EV+ landslide?  That is unlikely, but if he plays his cards right he just might pull off an otherwise unlikely 400+ EV landslide (an improvement over '08) come 2012 against a possibly really weak Republican (like someone else said a number of strong Republican candidates might be wary about running against a Democratic President who helped put away the "Terrorist of the Decade").
But most of all, like GPORTER mentioned, Obama should pray that the economy gets better otherwise the morale boost from Bin Laden's death would be very short lived.  If unemployment is still above 9% come November 2012 Obama is likely finished, if unemployment is below 8% he could win re-election though at less the amount of electoral votes than he did last time, if unemployment gets below 7.5% Obama wins in the re-election with over 400 Electoral Votes and 55% of the popular vote (if not more).  I usually disagree with pbrower's hackish maps but he could actually be right on this scenario.  This one event, the death of Bin Laden, could possibly be the one catalyst that takes Obama's re-election in 2012 from a pure tossup to what was once considered an unlikely landslide improvement over '08.
While the economy has way more importance and bearing on Obama's chance at re-election, the death of Osama Bin Laden, America's Most Wanted for the past decade, could be the difference between a bare win to the greatest popular vote victory since Ronald Reagan in 1984 (electoral vote is a different story).

In other words, this has the potential to be a game changer.