Have you noticed…
…a rash of articles lately saying Obama is riding high, and will be hard to beat in 2012?
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
…a rash of articles lately saying Obama is riding high, and will be hard to beat in 2012?
Yes, for a reason, it is a fair assessment in the longer term. We get so caught up in the daily and weekly news cycles that reality sometimes happens without our notice.
Obama will be formidable in 2012 as long as there is no third party candidate on the left, which is unlikely. A third party candidate splitting the anti-Obama vote is much more likely.
The same institutional forces that supported him in 2008 (unions, universities, mainstream media and entertainment, the Left, blacks, and the 40% or so who always vote Democratic) will be behind him. All of the advantages of incumbency will be with him. There won’t be a Ross Perot or John Anderson to split the vote. Remember, absent third parties most Presidents are re-elected.
The Republicans will have one chance only, and they have to reconcile the enthusiasts for people just like them who say the things they like to hear, with the need to get someone who can actually govern.
Oh yeah, the real issues are likely to be foreign policy and national security, all the while the Republican base is obsessing over the relatively minor differences the candidates have over close-to-home domestic policy. So the process and the public are not aligned for guaranteed success for whoever gains the nomination. If anything, the odds against are steep and growing steeper.
Have noticed, have not tasted the Kool-Aid, do not believe.
Why yes. “HIS NUMBERS ARE UP!!!”
Same with Romney.
Obama won because he ran a campaign with the media telling everyone that he would govern as a center left, near moderate. In 2012 most of the electorate will not be fooled again.
It comes down to a couple of things. The economy will probably get somewhat better despite the actions of the administration. Will it get better enough and will people feel like they are personally more financially secure. I suspect the answer to that will be no.
Will Obama care become more popular, or will healthcare continue to self destruct. I can see no path that Obama care will become more popular. However well the some of the individual concepts poll, the implementation in the law is horrific. I predict that it will be more unpopular in 2012 than it is today. It will also be an ever greater drag on the economy.
If the Republican can find any sort of reasonable candidate, I predict that Obama loses, and by a pretty solid margin too.
I hope people remember the broken promises and the fact that he always talks first and thinks later–the latter only when forced.
Something is wrong that picture, that Obama is now so formidable candidate for 2012. First of all everyone has had a clear look at him for the last two years, the MSM media can no longer hide his deficiencies. Second he has shown himself disdainful of the public will; imagine if Clinton had shown equal contempt for the public will, and Clinton sort to lead not rule.
I suspect the polls reflect the fact he has not done anything particularly vile since the Tuscon shooting and for once said the right thing at a speech, always his strong point. Even I approve of that, but I recognize that this is an event in an almost unblemished record of knavery.
BTW, neither the universities, the blacks, the left, and entertainment can be so easily stereotyped. The combat veteran union member or black man is not going to be taken in by Obama. Nor is an ardent New York working class democrat happy about terrorists being tried in civilian courts. The rest are either not numerous or will probably not be enthusiastic Obama supporters, at least not as much as last time and not enough to turn out in great numbers. As for the incumbency being an advantage, in Obama’s case it is a clear disadvantage, he spent the last two years offending 60% of the public. Recall too that in 2008, in spite of the massive media support, the final tally was 47% versus 53%. Through bad decision making Obama has at the very least reversed those numbers.
The American voter will have to overlook, and forget a great deal to re-elect Obama. The only thing I can safely predict about the 2012 election is the US will get what it deserves and if he does get re-elected it will signal the end of the US as a force for good in the world.
I predict Obama will have the highest approval rating of any defeated incumbent President. Which will reveal a new phenomenon in politics refered to as the AAPF (affirmative action pity factor).
> …a rash of articles lately saying Obama is riding high, and will be hard to beat in 2012?
The phrase which eludes you is “whistling past the graveyard”.
They tend to believe in the idea of repeat something enough and it will be true. It isn’t necessarily wrong either.
Still too early to really tell how the next election will go. Will we try a Kerry or actually run a decent candidate? Further I don’t even know *isn’t* a Kerry from the majority of the Republican contenders out there.
It may very well be that many will be satisfied with a Democratic President and a Republican Congress, frankly that wouldn’t bother me too much either (assuming it was actually a Republican congress, not RINO’s).
In any event I do not think Obama will “win” in the next election. Congress is a lost cause for the Democrats, it is primarily a question of if it will be as big as 2010 or not. Obama could go as far left as one could imagine and with a Republican Senate and House he can’t do anything. Indeed, if another 2010 happens then it would be likely we could overturn vetoes.
> I predict Obama will…
Steve, I predict that history will treat Bush well, and remember Obama as worse than Jimmy Carter.
“it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society” – Krishnamurti
Above (3:44) Bob from VA writes: “everyone has had a clear look at him for the last two years, the MSM media can no longer hide his deficiencies.”
The bad news is that Obama has been annointed by the media as THEIR candidate. Thus his first two years will easily be explained away by a “he’s reborn as a centrist” lede. Attention will be drawn to all of the centrist policies of his second 2 years as proof of his newfound centrist. He will be touted as a centrist from this point forward (the fact that they were created and forced upon him by a Republican house will receive no mention just as it was with Bill Clinton).
The good news, however, is that Obama won the election by only 7% or so. Thus, it’s not the mind of half of the voters that must be changed, but only that original 7% along with those who voted against him in 2008 who might otherwise be swayed to change their mind in 2012.
Thought question re 2012: Obamacare has already cost thousands their health insurance and caused premium costs to go up everywhere, soon it will start killing people, will the MSM be able to spin the story successfully in Obama’s favor, and if yes, for how long?
There will always be a group (of independents mostly) who still want to have Obama do well. The last two months of preserving tax cuts etc. make Obama appear to be what he presented himself to be during the 2008 election.
Like a jilted lover, they will look for any reason to hope.
Just the usual cheerleaders propping up the Empty Suit to the best of their ability. It ceased being effective circa Summer 2009 (initial rise of TEA Parties), was gut-splitting funny by Summer 2010 (JournoList), and is even now becoming that boring background noise that always accompanies irrelevance.
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
Bob from VA,
I think the media will certainly try to spin Obamacare. The entire concept of spin is tantamount to a lawyer’s argument to a jury; ignore and bury the evidence that refutes your case while trumpeting (as often and loud as possible) the evidence that makes it.
The spin will be infuriating to hear but have limited impact. Most adults outside the liberal union/media/academic setting hold a healthy skepticism of all this govt spending. Clinton won because of Ross Perot and the lack of a credible Republican opponent. My biggest fear is that we’ll promote another Mccain/Murkowski/Castle axis of disaster. Republicans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Meet the new “narrative”… yada yada.
Sure — on the rise. But the man’s party took a historic clocking in November — pretty much due to him, though he can easily deflect it onto Congress — and he’s been cutting deals since. He truly had no place to go but up: “president’s policies are so unpopular his opposition garners election gains not see since before FDR, then …”
Not a really great narrative, is it? Clinton already had his “comeback kid” label before 1994 — look for Obama’s water carriers to polish him up an even nicer badge by ’12. After all, if he can withstand (or even survive) this *gigantic* Repub takeover, well … it won’t be back to the idolatry of ’08, but he’ll certainly look better than he did three months ago.
Well, maybe he will get lucky and there will be a mass murder for him to exploit every few months…I know that was nasty, but it really is kind of how I feel.
Obama turned his back on his base and made a compromise with the Republicans to get a tax deal done…then he turned his back on his base again when he gave that speech in Tucson and made a point of sounding different than the rest of the Democrats. He took the high road, people like that and it helped his numbers.
Now if and when the time comes that he starts acting more like a Democrat then we will see what happens with his numbers.
Unlike Dan D, I don’t think foreign policy will be the number one issue…I think it is more likely to be long term unemployment, debt and high energy prices.
I also think this is the new narrative of the press, just keep telling us what a winner the guy is and pretty soon everyone will believe it. Americans have great faith in the wisdom of the majority..so if a poll comes out that shows a majority likes something Obama did then more and more people will go with that.
Obama campaigns mostly by destroying / molding the opposition.
Always.
Obama’s biggest weakness as a candidate last time was his lack of experience. That’s gone now.
Obama will be formidable in 2012 as long as there is no third party candidate on the left, which is unlikely.
I agree about the third party on the left: anyone running against The Won from the left will be labled a raaaaaacist! and dumped on by the Usual Suspects.
But…if unemployment is still floating about 9%, well, I’ve got two words for the Committee to Relect The Won: it’s the economy, stupid.
Mr. Frank;
yeah, he has experience now..experience making a mess of things
I’m not writing him off at all. Despite falling ratings and circulation, the MSM still have enormous power to shape the “narrative”. There are a lot of people who get their news from those sources. There are others who pay little attention to current affairs, but slavishly parrot whatever their favorite celebrities have to say. If Lady Gaga publicly supports repeal of DADT, her fans will too.
I think the Tucson shooting and its aftermath has given us a preview of how this campaign will look. The leftist attack dogs and their media mouthpieces will smear and slander the right all day long, giving Obama the chance to portray himself as a calm, rational centrist. He will benefit from the smears without getting his hands dirty.
Keep in mind that he only has to sway maybe 10% or less of the voters to be re-elected. Those are the same people I described in the first paragraph. Expect to see more demonization and fear-mongering about “violent right-wingers”.
I don’t see a challenge from the left, but rather a challenge from the center. I’ve heard that Michael Bloomberg is considering running as an independent. If some high-profile independent candidate like that appears, it won’t matter who the Republicans nominate.
Strcpy
While that may be the case for getting legislation passed, that is not the case for foreign policy decisions, where a President has much more freedom of action. For example, it appears that that Obama administration is getting ready to sell Lebanon down the river to Hezbollah in order to have “peace” with Iran and Syria.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2011/01/22/never-smile-at-a-crocodile/
Like Ricki, I don’t count Obama out. Most of the media personalities remain enthralled with BHO. They are like a bunch of 14 year old girls in 1965 at a Beatles concert. They are deeply in lust and their panties are soaking wet. They will lie, cheat, and steal to get a back stage pass in order to receive the attention of their idol. The MSM has a lot of power and they demonstrated in 2008 (and since then) they are willing to use that power to assist their messiah.
The other problem is the lack of a solid challenger in the republican party. None of the people considered contenders right now inspire me except Palin and the MSM will burn every bridge in the universe to bring her down. And, 2 years is a long time in politics.
BTW, Bloomberg is not a centrist. He’s an egotistical, elitist billionaire who thinks he can buy whatever he wants, including votes. I’d rather see Obama in the Oval Office than Bloomberg’s smug, smarmy face.
“”Obama could go as far left as one could imagine and with a Republican Senate and House he can’t do anything.””
Strcpy
Except for things like this.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20029302-501465.html
An internet kill switch at Obama’s descretion for “cyber emergencies”? Not good. Not good at all.
Yes I have seen them. I laugh at them. He’s a one term President.
> I predict Obama will…
> Steve, I predict that history will treat Bush well, and remember Obama as worse than Jimmy Carter.
I predict that history will be written in Chinese.
Let’s wait for a year to see if inflation is kicking in. If so, everything changes.
The world is moving so fast, two years is a lot longer time than it used to be.
My hunch is that our enemies will try to play their hand while the “weak horse” is still C-in-C. If they overplay, he’ll be out.
Cap’n Rusty Says:
January 24th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
I’m not even sure about that. In a time of crisis, people tend to rally around their leaders. Depending on what happens and how it happens, he might even benefit from a war or a terrorist attack. This is a scenario I’ve been worried about for some time.
Remember the terrorist attack in Spain several years ago? It was just before the election, and the leftist candidate was elected.
My hunch is that our enemies will try to play their hand while the “weak horse” is still C-in-C. If they overplay, he’ll be out. They would be foolish not to play their hand before somebody else gets the White House. But they don’t have to “overplay”, just play well (from their perspective).
Parker Says:
January 24th, 2011 at 7:41 pm
You’re right. He’s a very liberal nanny statist. But the media would portray him as one of the “good” “moderate” Republicans.
And I more or less agree with your last sentence.
Don’t forget that Bush’s approval rating went sky-high after 9/11. I think that a large measure of Bush’s unpopularity in his latter years stems from a backlash from people who felt obliged to support him, then hated themselves for having done so.
Don’t be too hasty, EvilDave. Remember the old saying: “If you owe the bank $100,000, they own you. If you owe the bank $100 million, you own them.”
Four years ago Hillary Rodham was being hailed the next Democratic presidential candidate, and very likely our next POTUS.
Just sayin’.
YES THAT’S WHY ALL THE DEMS WANTED HIM TO CAMPAIGN AT THEIR EVENTS!!!!!
no wait that’s not right is it?
NOmentum campaign 2011.
rickl: I flew into Seville the day of the bombings, 3 days before the election. Aznar’s party had a slight lead in the pols, but most Spaniards wanted to pull their troops out of Iraq. (Sound familiar?) Aznar tried to blame the bombings on the Basques, got caught in a lie, and the socialists won, because they had promised to cut and run. Radical Islam read Spain correctly . . . as a weak horse.
Real Americans rallied around Bush after 9/11 because we knew he’d fight back, and he’d get good advice. I suppose there could be some situation in which Obama would fight back, or take action, but it’s hard for me to believe that after watching Neda die, 6/20/09, and he did nothing. Nothing.
Our enemies probably know they can take advantage of the Weakness in the White House, because he won’t retaliate. Their trick will be to keep it below the level that pisses the rest of us off so bad that we throw him out and blow them up.
For those who predict that a foreign crisis would help Obama at the polls, recall Carter’s experience with the hostage crisis in Iran. While the public supported his efforts, he was not successful, and suffered accordingly at the polls.
However, if the crisis occurs very near to the election, the immediate jump in crisis support, before the POTUS has a chance to show how he can handle the situation, a crisis might help his electoral chances.
Just want to call attention to Artfl’s succinct comment above. Wouldn’t want such a moment to pass unnoticed. Well done!
I have a gut feeling that Obama is going to be hard to beat in 2012. (I never overestimate the American voters’ level of being informed.)
The Republicans’ best strategy is to:
1. Hammer away at the bad economy if there is one.
2. Hammer away at the sorry piece of legislation known as Obamacare.
3. Make the voters understand that to effectively repeal it, we need a Republican president and a Republican congress (House AND Senate).
4. Nominate a good strong, candidate who isn’t highly controversial.
Romney will have difficulty with this strategy because of the MA health care he supported. Palin just has too many (undeserved) negatives. I don’t see anyone else on the horizon who is willing to run.
Wish I did.
Bah. The only poll that really matters, as the cliche goes, is the one in the ballot boxes. We have those every two years. In the most recent one, voters were encouraged — by President Obama himself! — to make the election all about him, and Democrats were voted out in record numbers.
It’s very easy now to say that Obama is riding high, because that assertion won’t be tested for 21 months. (President Obama is a pioneer of running on untested promises.) But saying it doesn’t make it right. Any number of things could happen, in the week before Election Day, that would change everything.
In the meantime, I expect we’ll hear a lot of high-minded promises for 2012 — not because it’d be smart to do so, but because it’s what has always worked for him. He’s always promised the world to get the job he wants, and then coasted through that job, delivering very little, while promising the world to get the next job.
This is the end of the line. As President, he must act… and actions, unlike words, cannot please most of the people most of the time.
He’s demonstrated his willingness to throw just about anybody under the bus. His campaign prospects in 2012, I think, will depend a lot on just how many of us remember that.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
“Plans are underway to replace community, family, and church with propaganda, education, and mass media….the State shakes loose from Church, reaches out to School…. People are only little plastic lumps of human dough.” Edward A. Ross in 1901 in his famous book, Social Control
school would establish conditions for “selective breeding before the masses take things into their own hands.” Edward Thorndike of Columbia Teachers College
At the start of WWII millions of men showed up at registration offices to take low-level academic tests before being inducted.1 The years of maximum mobilization were 1942 to1944; the fighting force had been mostly schooled in the 1930s, both those inducted and those turned away. Of the 18 million men were tested, 17,280,000 of them were judged to have the minimum competence in reading required to be a soldier, a 96 percent literacy rate. Although this was a 2 percent fall-off from the 98 percent rate among voluntary military applicants ten years earlier, the dip was so small it didn’t worry anybody.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
A third American war began in the mid-1960s. By its end in 1973 the number of men found noninductible by reason of inability to read safety instructions, interpret road signs, decipher orders, and so on–in other words, the number found illiterate–had reached 27 percent of the total pool. Vietnam-era young men had been schooled in the 1950s and the 1960s–much better schooled than either of the two earlier groups–but the 4 percent illiteracy of 1941 which had transmuted into the 19 percent illiteracy of 1952 had now had grown into the 27 percent illiteracy of 1970. Not only had the fraction of competent readers dropped to 73 percent but a substantial chunk of even those were only barely adequate; they could not keep abreast of developments by reading a newspaper, they could not read for pleasure, they could not sustain a thought or an argument, they could not write well enough to manage their own affairs without assistance.
and we expect a mostly illiterate population with an inflated self esteem who cant sustain thoughts or long cogent arguments, and are mostly ignorant of the past, history, economics, etc…
to discern that they are being lied to and shined
want to know why they hate fly over country?
by 1840 the incidence of complex literacy in the United States was between 93 and 100 percent wherever such a thing mattered. According to the Connecticut census of 1840, only one citizen out of every 579 was illiterate and you probably don’t want to know, not really, what people in those days considered literate; it’s too embarrassing. Popular novels of the period give a clue: Last of the Mohicans, published in 1826, sold so well that a contemporary equivalent would have to move 10 million copies to match it. If you pick up an uncut version you find yourself in a dense thicket of philosophy, history, culture, manners, politics, geography, analysis of human motives and actions, all conveyed in data-rich periodic sentences so formidable only a determined and well-educated reader can handle it nowadays. Yet in 1818 we were a small-farm nation without colleges or universities to speak of. Could those simple folk have had more complex minds than our own?
the farmers know more than they do and their charges do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the farmers like bundt are better educated since they are not educated by them for their purposes, but educated by family for the better outcome of the child.
the fact that a Walter lippman press (whose secretary was a soviet spy), is molding the population based on ideas back then, and the SAME ideas, is completely lost.
Brains, you know, are suspect in the Republican Party. Walter Lippmann
sound familiar? its only almost 100 years old…
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
Walter Lippmann
Many a time I have wanted to stop talking and find out what I really believed.
Walter Lippmann
No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
Walter Lippmann
basically the riots are going to start soon when the 47% who don’t get enough welfare are going to find out they are getting less in exchange for all their help.
if food becomes a problem, know that ration cards are coming… but dont look to a man who lives the creten paradox for truth.
Don’t count out Sarah Palin. She is a formidable force, the like of which I have not seen in my lifetime. Even people who actively dislike her have been heard to admire how she keeps taking heavy blows to the gut — and keeps on standing, and keeps on SMILING, and keeps on fighting.
She still has her tremendously influential Facebook page. She still has Sarah Palin’s Alaska, which I think will “humanize” her to millions. Everywhere she speaks, she draws enormous crowds of people who love her. And she has two years to continue to innovate in delivering her message.
I firmly believe that, in 2012, the Republican nominee will either be a candidate supported by Palin, or else Palin herself.
DiB
It’s true, as I predicted a long time ago, he’s slinking back closer to the center for re-election image purposes. The MSM will accomodate him, and Democratic Party mainstream voters will obstinately support all things Party, regardless of the consequences to the country or America’s allies in the world; just like communists…
The stories are seeded. The WH or the back office at 1825 K street N.W., Suite 200 blows the dog whistle, and off they go: in perfect coordination for maximum operant conditioning effect.
As to their ability to control the narrative, I have no doubt. That they have no idea what to do with it responsibly after that is what makes them look shamefully stupid.