Only Now In Doubt?

Obama’s reelection has been in doubt since his first election:

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: yes, Obama beat McCain in 2008. Which is to say, Obama beat a Republican candidate who was too tired to fight, too slow to realize that his signature issue (national security) was temporarily downgraded, and too inflexible to switch gears away from the campaign that McCain expected to run against Hillary Clinton; and Obama did this in the atmosphere of a sudden collapse in the economy, at the worst possible moment for the GOP. Congratulations. Huzzah. Feel the magic – but since then? Well, let’s just say that the magic had a very, very short half-life…

It never existed, for me. Many others have seen through the charade as well, now.

27 thoughts on “Only Now In Doubt?”

  1. I voted for MaCain/Palin in ’08.

    Frankly, I overestimated Obama. I feared he would be America’s Lenin, but we were saved by his incompetence.

  2. There is good research to indicate that barring a major foreign policy crisis, economic conditions determine presidential election outcomes. McCain didn’t lose because of his positions or competence as a candidate; he lost because he was from the incumbent party and the economy was in free fall.

    Now that it’s clear that the economy will still be terrible in 2012, Obama is in big trouble. There are only three ways he can win: 1) The economy makes an utterly unexpected recovery, 2) The US is attacked and he benefits from a rally-round-the-commander effect, or 3) The GOP nominates a candidate so unacceptable to general election voters that they decide (for the first time ever) to disregard the economy.

    Scenario 3) is why the Obama team is most afraid of Romney.

  3. Jim, Obama’s people were touting Jon Huntsman as the opponent Obama feared most and some people insisted at the time that it was sincere.

    If Obama is afraid of Romney it’s because deep down he doesn’t want a second term.

  4. 1) The economy makes an utterly unexpected recovery

    In which case the NYT headlines would be “The economy has made an utterly expected recovery. Read all about the new green jobs on page 2.”

    Scenario 3) is why the Obama team is most afraid of Romney.

    That’s a leftwing plant. They get the vapors most from Perry. The vision of what he would do to their messiah in a debate keeps them awake at night.

  5. Jim, Obama’s people were touting Jon Huntsman as the opponent Obama feared most and some people insisted at the time that it was sincere.

    They wouldn’t want to run against Huntsman, or Mitch Daniels, or Chris Christie, or Jeb Bush, or Tim Pawlenty; but none of those guys has a shot at the nomination. The only plausible nominees that they’d look forward to running against are Palin and Bachmann (not that Obama would necessarily win, but it’d improve the odds).

    In which case the NYT headlines would be “The economy has made an utterly expected recovery. Read all about the new green jobs on page 2.”

    Voters don’t vote based on NYT headlines; they vote based on the economy as they experience it.

    They get the vapors most from Perry. The vision of what he would do to their messiah in a debate keeps them awake at night.

    Debates don’t decide elections. And if they did, Perry’s recent performances would help them sleep better.

    Unless he is indelibly labelled as the candidate who will end Social Security and give your kid’s college slot to an illegal alien, Perry would beat Obama, but he’ll scare more independents and motivate more Democrats than Romney would.

    Right now it looks like we might see a replay of the 2008 Democratic primary, with two well-funded candidates slugging it out for months all over the country. That would hurt Obama; the negatives of the winning candidate will be such old news that Obama’s people won’t get much traction from a 2004-style scare campaign.

  6. Obama fears Romney, but Carter likes him. I’m having trouble grokking this.

    Is Obama really afraid his base will switch parties, that Romney is a better version of himself?

  7. As an independent, I can say that Romney isn’t an acceptable candidate. I’m afraid that he wouldn’t sign a repeal of Obama”care.”

    As a leftist democrat, Jim, you are uniquely unqualified to have an opinion on what independents like…

  8. Debates don’t decide elections. And if they did, Perry’s recent performances would help them sleep better.

    Debates allow candidates to place sound bites directly into the public discussion, without the MSM’s spin. They have more effect than you’re alluding. There is general agreement that McCain was soft on candidate Obama. His team would love a second go-around of that. Perry would be the least likely candidate to give them that, his performance against his fellow republicans notwithstanding.

    Unless he is indelibly labelled as the candidate who will end Social Security and give your kid’s college slot to an illegal alien

    You’re joking with that right? I can envision the ad, but not outside SNL.

  9. “Frankly, I overestimated Obama. I feared he would be America’s Lenin, but we were saved by his incompetence.”

    This goes double for me.

    By making Obamacare his -first- priority, he maxxed out his opposition and minimized his own clout.

    If the first item had been, say, total amnesty under the guise of ‘a long tough road to citizenship for all’, the entire right side of the spectrum would have collapsed into internal sniping.

  10. Obama fears Romney, but Carter likes him. I’m having trouble grokking this.

    Romney isn’t scary to Democrats and independents. He used to be pro-choice, believes in AGW, thinks people should have health insurance, etc. His style in office and in business was pragmatic, not ideological. These days he says whatever the GOP primary electorate wants to hear, but you can tell that he doesn’t really believe it.

    As a leftist democrat, Jim, you are uniquely unqualified to have an opinion on what independents like…

    I switched my registration to independent so that I can vote for Romney in the NH primary. I’d much rather Obama be re-elected, and if Romney gets the nomination it hurts Obama’s chances, but it looks like we’ll have a GOP president and I’d rather have President Romney than President Perry.

    There is general agreement that McCain was soft on candidate Obama.

    Whenever a candidate loses people say he should have done this, that or the other thing differently. The winning team is acclaimed as geniuses. But the research shows that campaign quality is not an important variable; the level and trajectory of personal income, GDP and unemployment are much more important.

    You’re joking with that right?

    Correct. Right now much of the GOP establishment (and Romney!) would like to label Perry as so far outside the mainstream as to be unelectable, but they won’t run the risk of doing that in case he wins the nomination anyway.

    If Perry is nominated Obama will try to make the Social Security charge stick, but I doubt it will work. In 2008 there was a famous focus group where the independent voters told the pollsters that while they didn’t approve of Obama having been a terrorist in the Weather Underground with Bill Ayers, they were going to vote for him anyway. When the economy stinks even “successful” negative attacks lose their traction. McCain could have handed his campaign over to Rush Limbaugh and Jerome Corsi and it wouldn’t have helped him.

  11. If the first item had been, say, total amnesty under the guise of ‘a long tough road to citizenship for all’, the entire right side of the spectrum would have collapsed into internal sniping.

    The Senate GOP was totally unified in 2009-10, even when it meant Senators had to oppose policies that they had formerly championed. Why would immigration have been any different?

  12. “I switched my registration to independent so that I can vote for Romney in the NH primary. I’d much rather Obama be re-elected, and if Romney gets the nomination it hurts Obama’s chances, but it looks like we’ll have a GOP president and I’d rather have President Romney than President Perry.”

    Wut?

    ***

    “The Senate GOP was totally unified in 2009-10, even when it meant Senators had to oppose policies that they had formerly championed. Why would immigration have been any different?”

    As if the GoP mattered back then.

  13. As if the GoP mattered back then.

    The Senate GOP mattered enormously. In terms of policy, they used the filibuster to block a health care public option, cap-and-trade, the DREAM act, and more. They ran out the clock at every opportunity, narrowing Obama’s already-narrow window of opportunity for filibuster-proof policy making. They blocked or slow-walked his nominations. And, most importantly, they made his policies less popular.

    Obama thought his policies would be popular and attract GOP votes because they incorporated GOP ideas. But typical voters don’t judge policy by its content. They think that policies supported by both parties are good policies, while policies that are opposed by 100% of one party must be suspect. Mitch McConnell knows that; as he put it:

    We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of these proposals, because we thought — correctly, I think — that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan.

    A GOP president could have proposed the Affordable Care Act, cap-and-trade, and immigration reform, gotten lots of GOP votes, and benefitted politically from passing popular, bipartisan legislation. The Congressional GOP shrewdly denied Obama those benefits.

    The question for 2013 is, assuming we have a Republican president, will the Senate Democratic caucus be as unified in obstruction as the GOP was in 2009?

  14. And, most importantly, they made his policies less popular.

    Which policies?

    a health care public option, cap-and-trade, the DREAM act, and more

    They clearly are supermen. If we could clone them…

    We should fear the future candidate that can overcome our ability to prevent those policies from selling themselves.

  15. The Senate GOP mattered enormously. In terms of policy, they used the filibuster to block a health care public option, cap-and-trade, the DREAM act, and more. They ran out the clock at every opportunity, narrowing Obama’s already-narrow window of opportunity for filibuster-proof policy making. They blocked or slow-walked his nominations. And, most importantly, they made his policies less popular.

    Democracy in action. I know you want the filibuster ended, but this is a sterling example of why such things should be allowed to continued. By slowing down the process via filibusters, the Republicans were able to get the US voters to see what Obama was doing and hamstring what could have been one of the most dangerous Congresses in history.

    Obama thought his policies would be popular and attract GOP votes because they incorporated GOP ideas.

    The mandatory fee/tax on the “uninsured” is reprehensible and never was in a Republican plan. Even if the unconstitutional aspects of Obamacare were in Republican plans, doesn’t mean that the Republicans were wrong to stonewall it.

    The question for 2013 is, assuming we have a Republican president, will the Senate Democratic caucus be as unified in obstruction as the GOP was in 2009?

    We’ll see. It’s not necessarily bad, if the Democrats are effective at obstruction. I’d like Obamacare completely reversed, but aside from that and a few other bad ideas passed this time around, I don’t see any reason that Republicans should be given a free ride just because they happen to be in the party that doesn’t have Obama in it.

  16. They can always use the same Senate parlimentary maneuver to undo Obamacare that they used to get it past a fillibuster.

    In fact, I expect just that to happen if the courts don’t shitcan it first..

  17. Jim, I have a (semi)serious question. The words “green jobs” are entering the joke-punch-line territory. Something like “shovel ready”. It’s like “attack waaaatch” in super slo-mo. If there isn’t a youtube with someone saying “green jooooobs” yet there will be. Do you think Obama will stop saying those words (in a non-parodical manner) at some point before next November?

  18. “The Senate GOP mattered enormously. In terms of policy, they used the filibuster to block a health care public option, cap-and-trade, the DREAM act, and more.”

    So why did the Democrats in the Democrat controlled congress stop Bush from implementing immigration reform?

    “Obama thought his policies would be popular and attract GOP votes because they incorporated GOP ideas.”

    Umm nope. Obama was never serious about the GoP buying into his policies. He controlled both houses of congress and intended to steamroll over the minority.

    The tip off was his rhetorical directed toward the GoP before asking them for favors. Someone who wants to work with other people wouldn’t use language that divides by race, class, and religion.

  19. The Dream Act didn’t even come up for a vote until after the mid-term shellacking. We will never know if the Democrats would have been able to get the 1 vote needed to end a filibuster if they had raised the issue sooner.

  20. And there were a lot of Dems that voted against cap and tax after they saw how unpopular Obama’s agenda with the voters.

  21. His style in office and in business was pragmatic, not ideological.

    We agree, he doesn’t believe in anything.

    Just the kind of guy we need to clean house. /sarc

  22. Democracy in action.

    The 59-member post-Scott Brown Democratic caucus represented 63% of the US population, but it’s democracy in action to have them blocked by 41 Senators representing 37% of the country? Why not require 70% or 80%?

    The mandatory fee/tax on the “uninsured” is reprehensible and never was in a Republican plan.

    The Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993 was sponsored by 19 Senate Republicans. It required “citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program.”

    They can always use the same Senate parlimentary maneuver to undo Obamacare that they used to get it past a fillibuster.

    Obamacare was passed with 60 votes during that brief time after Franken had been seated and before Scott Brown was elected. Budget-related aspects were modified, after the Brown election, using reconciliation. A GOP Senate could use reconciliation in 2013 to make other budgetary changes to the law, but they would need 60 votes to actually undo it (and no one expects there to be 60 GOP Senators in 2013).

    Obama was never serious about the GoP buying into his policies.

    It is very, very rare for a party to have the presidency, the House, and 59/60 votes in the Senate. 2009-10 was a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Obama and the Democrats. And yet he and Max Baucus wasted 9 precious months trying to get Olympia Snowe and Charles Grassley to sign onto health care reform. Obama wasn’t just serious about getting GOP support — he was obsessed with it.

    The Dream Act didn’t even come up for a vote until after the mid-term shellacking.

    Because the Senate GOP ate up so much time with procedural maneuvers — they ran out the clock.

  23. “but it’s democracy in action to have them blocked by 41 Senators representing 37% of the country? Why not require 70% or 80%?’

    I am sure that if we were to time travel back to the year 2000, you would have been against the Democrat’s use of the filibuster? Checks and balances are a good thing.

    “Obama wasn’t just serious about getting GOP support — he was obsessed with it.”

    Agree to disagree on that one. I don’t know how anyone trying to get someone to help them starts of by calling them names like un-American evil-mongers or by labeling protesters as racists a heartbeat away from rioting and sending out the SEIU to physically confront political opponents.

    “Because the Senate GOP ate up so much time with procedural maneuvers — they ran out the clock.”

    Or because the Democrats are full of it? After all they refused to work with Bush on immigration reform.

    There is a man named Miguel Estrada, he was nominated by Bush to become an appellate court judge but the Democrats filibustered his nomination until Estrada after a year withdrew himself from consideration. Why? Because, “he is Latino and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment.”

  24. I am sure that if we were to time travel back to the year 2000, you would have been against the Democrat’s use of the filibuster?

    I’m in favor of getting rid of it no matter who is in power. For that matter, I’m in favor of getting rid of the Senate. If the GOP wins the House in 2012, President Romney or President Perry should be able to pass the program of legislation that he ran on.

    I don’t know how anyone trying to get someone to help them starts of by calling them names like un-American evil-mongers

    Show me where Obama called Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, or any other GOP Senator an un-American evil-monger. And by the way, when did Republicans develop such a thin skin about political rhetoric? They call Obama an un-American socialist all day long, but cry like babies whenever they’re criticized.

    Or because the Democrats are full of it? After all they refused to work with Bush on immigration reform.

    Senate Democrats voted 2-1 for Bush’s immigration bill! It was Republicans who refused to work with Bush on immigration.

    There is a man named Miguel Estrada

    One more reason why the filibuster should be abolished.

Comments are closed.