will Barack Obama be re-elected?

[pbrower2a]

Hard to say. The foreign policy issue is going to be huge in the next six months I suspect. If he falls flat on his face because Dear Leader does something stupid, really stupid, then no, I suspect his numbers will plummet.

"Dear Leader" is a sobriquet for Kim Jong-il, who has already done some provocative acts. One may quibble whether his deeds are stupid or insane.

Obama might have to cut a deal with China or Russia -- if not both -- in the event of "Dear Leader" doing his real-life "Doctor Strangelove" act.  It's far easier to cut a deal with a political system very different from one's own if one has credibility.

Obama has far more credibility than did his predecessor.

[pbrower2a]

Way too early to say.  The best way to tell will be in late 2010/early 2011, and who from the republicans decides to run.  If we see the A listers like Jindal, Pence, Ryan, and Cantor lining up to run, then he will be considered beatable.  If we get Romney, Huckabee, Senator John Doe from wherever, etc then most likely he'll be re-elected

Huh?

Obama can lose a lot of support that he got in 2008 and still win the 2012 election. If anything he has gained a little since the election.

[pbrower2a]

Indiana I think was a fluke

Many of us thought the same of West Virginia after 2000.

I thought so too because of how strong the Democratic party is there. When they immediately called it for Bush in 2004, I was shocked.

Thing is McCain never campaigned in Indiana, despite the polls wrote it off as safe, which gave Obama plenty of room to go after it hard, and even then it took until 2:30 to call it after polls had been closed for over 7 hours. Also, Indiana is still well to the right of the national average whereas in 2000, WV clearly shifted from 7 points left of the natl average to 7 points right of the natl average in just one cycle.

The Republicans won't make that same mistake again, and they will likely go after Indiana just to say they took an Obama state. Of course, they will have to defend MO and AZ to make that argument sound good, but those two are are possible to win again.

Indiana kept its rural heritage far longer than neighboring Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. Rural America has less need or desire for Big Government because small towns can always put public buildings on the edge of town, because few people make long-distance commutes the needs for highways are modest, and family authority over children is tight. But it has attracted industry, much of it a supplement to small incomes from small farms. Indiana is still a "right-to-work" state which has attracted labor-intense  manufacturing that suddenly became vulnerable to the subprime lending/ real estate meltdown and skyrocketing oil prices. Indiana has much of the RV industry. Such once-conservative bastions as Elkhart and Lagrange Counties suddenly found themselves with 15% or so unemployment. Places that used to vote 80% GOP now voted about 65% GOP. 

Indiana went from being safe for Republicans to near the national norm.

[pbrower2a]

I think he'll be re-elected probably like Clinton was, status-quo style.
By 2012, assuming no major blips, the economy will have improved, and justified or not, Obama can take credit for it. Most serious Republican contenders will wait for 2016. I hope that whoever we nominate can lose respectably somewhere around 4%. Until we know who the GOP nominee is, here is my map.

Indiana I think was a fluke, and if the Nebraska legislature makes it winner-take-all, then NE-2 automatically goes GOP.

Missouri is the most obvious one of the McCain states to switch, as would be Arizona without McCain.
North Carolina will probably vote for Obama again as will Virginia.

I can't see Obama making enough gains into Georgia to flip it, nor Texas. Montana and South Dakota tend to be anti-incumbent, so I kept those GOP.

This Is quite Likely the map for 2012 especilly If things keep going as they are now.Even against Palin or Gingrich Obama will not have a Reagan ELectoral landslide.He could get up to 55 percent of the popular vote but Alaska,Utuh,Wyoming,Idaho,The Dakotas,and most of the South will never be carried by Obama.Indiana Is the Obama state most likely to flip back to Republicans but remember also Democrats have thought they could take back West Virginia after what they thought was a fluke In 2000.Hasn't happened.Missouri Is the Mccain State most likely to flip to Obama.And with Mccain not running Arizona will be a a battleground and Republicans better stop ailenating hispanic voters.If Obama Is still In high approvol ratings and the Republicans are In bad shape they Georgia and Montana might come Into play.Right now I would call them for whoever wins the Republican nomination.

You're saying Obama is invincible 3 1/2 years out.

You know, they said the same about George H.W. Bush, Carter, and Johnson (who didn't even run his odds were so bad).

GHW Bush: a dinosaur. He couldn't offer a credible Second Act.

Carter: eccentric and muddled.

LBJ: caused a badly-going war to bloat.

[pbrower2a]

When you got as much charisma and persuadability as Obama, it would take a thermonuclear holocaust to lose reelection. The economic downturn started during Bush's term and he can always leave the blame on the Bush regime. And when the economy gets worse he can just claim it's just an aftereffect of Republican policies enacted a long time ago blah blah blah and knowing the guillability of the electorate, they might just buy it.

The damage that the previous administration did to the economy will take years to undo. We can see it in a declining dollar, commodity prices from cocoa to gasoline, costs of imports and foreign travel, and a falling standard of living. Ordinarily pro-business conservatives call for sacrifices so that Big Business can invest in plant and equipment, research and development, and the like. Now it simply enriches executives who wield dictatorial power over employees. Hint: it's ordinarily a good idea to leave the family farm -- but not in the last ten years. When the quick, easy money is to be made by legalized loansharking, we have big problems.

The American public recognizes that things are bad -- but perhaps not how bad. We might have been better off to let the failed giant banks go under; all that they were able to do that the smaller banks were unable to do was to play a shell game of getting increasingly-bigger volumes of loans irrespective of quality. To Hell with that sort of banking! I'd love to see some of the high-flying bankers of five years ago have to pawn off their Mercedes-Benz autos for bus fares, beans, and rent for some cr@ppy apartment.

The only way for us to get out of this mess is to do what we used to do well -- small business.
 

[pbrower2a]

Ask a bookmaker for odds.

[pbrower2a]

When you got as much charisma and persuadability as Obama, it would take a thermonuclear holocaust to lose reelection. The economic downturn started during Bush's term and he can always leave the blame on the Bush regime. And when the economy gets worse he can just claim it's just an aftereffect of Republican policies enacted a long time ago blah blah blah and knowing the guillability of the electorate, they might just buy it.

The damage that the previous administration did to the economy will take years to undo. We can see it in a declining dollar, commodity prices from cocoa to gasoline, costs of imports and foreign travel, and a falling standard of living. Ordinarily pro-business conservatives call for sacrifices so that Big Business can invest in plant and equipment, research and development, and the like. Now it simply enriches executives who wield dictatorial power over employees. Hint: it's ordinarily a good idea to leave the family farm -- but not in the last ten years. When the quick, easy money is to be made by legalized loansharking, we have big problems.

The American public recognizes that things are bad -- but perhaps not how bad. We might have been better off to let the failed giant banks go under; all that they were able to do that the smaller banks were unable to do was to play a shell game of getting increasingly-bigger volumes of loans irrespective of quality. To Hell with that sort of banking! I'd love to see some of the high-flying bankers of five years ago have to pawn off their Mercedes-Benz autos for bus fares, beans, and rent for some cr@ppy apartment.

The only way for us to get out of this mess is to do what we used to do well -- small business.
 

I think the way I worded this came out awkward. I'm not saying the Republicans are free of guilt or playing partisan here, just saying that Obama is too charismatic and persuasive to the average joe to lose reelection. Once again, he's a master debater (I had to).

I understand now, and I accept your explanation. Obama has the best political skills of any President since at least Ronald Reagan's first term -- and similar techniques. To believe that he could fail requires that his ideology make him a bad President (he's not that far Left) or that he prove Nixonesque in power-lust or utterly corrupt. Not since JFK have we had any President who so well framed his political agenda in rhetoric. So far he has shown no recklessness. He says what he means and means what he says without ambiguity.

I don't think that he could get away with the same level of ineptitude as Dubya, who barely got re-elected. We as a people are less tolerant of incompetence, sleazy methods, and dishonesty than we were in 2004 -- and that is for the better.

It has been a long time since a President won re-election in a squeaker other than 2004 (of which there remain questions).  Truman would have won in a landslide had it not been for the Dixiecrat defection.

I stand on my statement: Obama has no responsibility to restore the wild boom of recent years. That's one thing that he absolutely couldn't do if he wanted. Our system couldn't afford another one. Obama can get away even with raising taxes so long as they come with expanded services (like national health care) or social justice.

[pbrower2a]

When you got as much charisma and persuadability as Obama, it would take a thermonuclear holocaust to lose reelection. The economic downturn started during Bush's term and he can always leave the blame on the Bush regime. And when the economy gets worse he can just claim it's just an aftereffect of Republican policies enacted a long time ago blah blah blah and knowing the guillability of the electorate, they might just buy it.

The damage that the previous administration did to the economy will take years to undo. We can see it in a declining dollar, commodity prices from cocoa to gasoline, costs of imports and foreign travel, and a falling standard of living. Ordinarily pro-business conservatives call for sacrifices so that Big Business can invest in plant and equipment, research and development, and the like. Now it simply enriches executives who wield dictatorial power over employees. Hint: it's ordinarily a good idea to leave the family farm -- but not in the last ten years. When the quick, easy money is to be made by legalized loansharking, we have big problems.

The American public recognizes that things are bad -- but perhaps not how bad. We might have been better off to let the failed giant banks go under; all that they were able to do that the smaller banks were unable to do was to play a shell game of getting increasingly-bigger volumes of loans irrespective of quality. To Hell with that sort of banking! I'd love to see some of the high-flying bankers of five years ago have to pawn off their Mercedes-Benz autos for bus fares, beans, and rent for some cr@ppy apartment.

The only way for us to get out of this mess is to do what we used to do well -- small business.
 

I think the way I worded this came out awkward. I'm not saying the Republicans are free of guilt or playing partisan here, just saying that Obama is too charismatic and persuasive to the average joe to lose reelection. Once again, he's a master debater (I had to).

Well, I hate to be the one to tell you that you are as big a dumbass as everyone thinks, but you are.  Obama is hardly a "master debater" (he's sub-par at best).  The only thing he's good at is framing the issues so that he favors him, which wasn't exactly difficult last year.  This far out, it's way too early to say what will happen in 2012, but to say that the only way Obama loses is if a thermonuclear holocaust occurs is beyond stupid.  Finally, what is a libertarian doing talking about 'social justice'?  Get out of here.

I do not claim to be a libertarian. I discussed social justice as an ideal  -- an alternative to the power of cartels and monopolies that dictate terms of trade as competitive businesses can't. If anything, high graduated taxes would encourage competition as it did in the 1950s. If low taxes promote monopolies and cartels that destroy consumer choice (without which capitalism is another form of command system) and concentrate wealth among a few tycoons and bureaucratic retainers, then one might as well use high taxes at the least to pay off deficits. I prefer a society in which nobody has an inherent right to exploit the weakness of another through the stark "my terms or do without" offering that a monopolist offers. Corporate control of terms of trade can be a form of despotism.  

Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates get much attention, but that attention belies the relative scarcity of opportunities for debates in governing. The President makes speeches in office; he rarely debates.  

If you think someone too stupid to be a participant in these forums, then use your "ignore list".

[pbrower2a]

Understood and accepted.

[pbrower2a]

Interesting tidbit: George H.W. Bush's approval rating was 66% as late as October 1991.

... and he had no idea of what to do next. Such happens when one achieves everything that one wants to achieve in four years. Considering how the world changed between 1989 and 1993, with the fall of Communism in Europe, the overthrow of a drug-dealing anti-American dictator in Panama, and the military emasculation of a would-be Napoleon in the Middle East, I would say that GHWB was a success as President.

Obama can't solve every problem that he thinks America has by 2012.

[pbrower2a]

Note: I'm not a premium member, so I'm not aware whether I can generate a 2012 electoral map.

One thing I have considered: When it comes to Election 2012, if President Barack Obama (D-Illinois) loses any states, he'll take some away from the GOP and net a gain in electoral votes. (Say, for example, the GOP wins back Republican bastion Indiana. Obama counters with bellwether Missouri—won by less 4,000 votes by a 2008 John McCain—and he also grabs Montana. It has voted the same as Colorado in all post-World War II elections, save for '08—in which Obama did not quite collapse the 20-point margin George W. Bush had in carrying the Big Sky State in 2004; shifting 18 points Democratic, Obama lost Mont. by 11,000-plus votes and 2.5 percentage points.)

Another thing is this: If Obama is considered a success by Election 2012, he may be in for a landslide in both the popular vote (10 percentage points, minimum) and Electoral College (which has never been officially defined). In that scenario, he doesn't surrender a single state—not even Ind.—carried in Election 2008. And he builds on top of that electoral success in adding numerous others. Which ones are a matter of determination, speculation, and what-have-you.

You can create maps: use someone else's from within a quote and modify it at will.

Here's my interpretation of your scenario:

key (2008 electoral vote allocation):

maroon: the so-called Blue Firewall, Obama won above 9% in 2008
red: solid Obama wins in 2008, 5-9%
pink: bare Obama wins, 2008 (<5%)
orange: shaky GOP wins, 2008
light green: Huckabee wins, Romney loses
medium green: Romney wins, Huckabee loses
medium blue: slight vulnerability for a GOP nominee in 2008
deep blue: no real chance for Obama in 2012

Obama will have to be incompetent to lose anything in maroon, as these states have well-entrenched pro-Democratic political cultures. Obama wins with these alone and practically anything else. Medium red? Some vulnerability should the economy go bad, but even one is enough to win in 2012 with the so-called Blue Firewall intact. Pink? They were marginal wins. Obama doesn't need them, but they are more likely holds than losses.

Orange? These will be difficult for any Republican nominee to hold. Except for Arizona these were legitimate swing states in 2008, and Arizona will be a legitimate swing state in 2012.     

Green? It depends on who wins the nomination. Huckabee wins the ones in pale green because he has the right political culture, but probably none of those in dark green (Utah? It's up to Huckabee to make amends with the LDS Church, because disrespect for the LDS Church is one way to lose Utah. Obama could win it against Huckabee even though Romney could win 80% of the vote there).  The Dakotas are not as close as Montana or Missouri, but Huckabee has yet to show that he can win outside the South in any states that aren't indiscriminately Republican.

Blue? Various shades of futility for Obama. Texas will be much closer in 2012 than in 2008 -- but not by enough -- due to urbanization and the rapid growth of the Hispanic vote. Alaska has some chance of a revenge vote if someone has done something nasty to Sarah Palin, and Nebraska isn't as deeply-Republican as Kansas or Oklahoma.  Medium blue suggests that Obama can win them only in a 40-state landslide.

The four different colors for Nebraska illustrate the mechanics of the 2012 Presidential race. Obama won NE-02 (Greater Omaha); NE-01 (eastern Nebraska except for Greater Omaha) is a possible pickup for Obama against either Huckabee or Romney [it appears yellow because orange somehow doesn't show on the little square for it]; Nebraska is a reasonably-certain win for Romney, but not so certain for Huckabee, and NE-03 is one of the most Republican-leaning districts in America, the sort that would vote for a Democrat only if the GOP nominee were David DuKKKe.

[pbrower2a]

Insiders have speculated that the President is willing to risk his re-election in order to push forth his far-left agenda.

See, now that is unlikely.

But it would be a refreshing change of pace.

He picks his battles, times, and places. He plays to win. He won't go for a big tax-and-spend program until he sees that he can get away with it.

[pbrower2a]

I am by no mean an expert of the US demographic voting, but to answer the question of this thread, I would just say that the biggest problem to me for Obama would be a case of war.

I consider the guy as being a very good politician but to be a full very good politician you have to have some very good abilities in the handling of the sword. Until now, I consider that Obama has a very good record in term of diplomacy, he's clearly very good in it, at least IMO, but if ever it happens a case in which diplomacy meets some limits, then Obama will have to show what is he able to do in this case. That has always been here that I tended to find it could be a weak point in him. But well, I might have been wrong, let's give a chance to the future...

No President in the last century has ever entered office with an open agenda of starting a war. That is not to say that there isn't a war going on when a President takes office or that special interests don't want war. Americans don't like shooting at people and like being shot at even less. Most of us prefer life and prosperity to glorification that we can't appreciate while living. We recognize a heroic death as much tragedy (look what someone gave up) as glory and necessity. Even if we have shown ourselves good at war we don't like it. We would rather do something else. That's just as well. The most militaristic societies hasten their own downfall by creating hostile minorities as willing fifth columns and exposing their military weaknesses through blunders that their rigid thought creates. Note well that every military order fosters obsessive-compulsive tendencies that preclude innovation, cutting deals with others, or domestic tranquility. The military people who have their heads on straight recognize how different the military culture is from the rest of public life, including politics, education, religion, commerce, and family life.

War is the ultimate high-stakes gamble for a person, a government, and a nation. Anyone who fails to recognize the stakes for a person needs to read or re-read All Quiet on the Western Front . For a ruling class? Gone With the Wind or Doctor Zhivago. I look at Dubya, who thought that Iraq and Afghanistan would be easy pickings -- a usual metaphor is "an over-ripe fruit on the verge of falling into our hands".  Mussolini thought much the same of Ethiopia in 1936 and Greece in 1940; Ethiopia would prove more trouble than it was worth (the over-stretched British found it an easy conquest as a legitimate liberation) and Greece proved far too difficult for Italy to take on alone. (I have compared Dubya to Mussolini frequently for their shared depravities and for their debasement of democracy. Non-Americans don't realize how close America was to becoming a fascistic dictatorship with George W. Bush as a puppet for Karl Rove, a pliant Congress on the whole whose composition could be regulated, and a cat's-paw for the neocon clique).

I can hardly imagine a greater plum for Obama than a graceful exit from Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither is quite the equivalent of Korea in 1953... but no superpowers now in existence have an interest in a prolonged war in either place. Obama is in a far better position for dealing with Russia or China, and he has swiftly improved relations with countries (France, Germany) that had deteriorated without valid excuses. Eisenhower got much political capital from a cease-fire in Korea, and so can Obama for something analogous in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dubya was the wrong person to cut any deal. North Korea? That's up to China and Russia to make their deals with Japan and South Korea more than with us.

Our military system does not depend upon the President as a leader in the field. Such was so with medieval kings, but such is not so with elected leaders either too old (like Churchill) or too crippled (like FDR) to lead troops in the field. Obama of course has lesser military experience than did Dubya (the latter's experience a disgrace) and no more than Bill Clinton, a draft-dodger. Clinton's predecessor (GHWB) was able to draw little from his own wartime experience in organizing a response to Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait. Good civilian leaders can do little more in wartime than to manage the diplomacy, set economic priorities, and establish rules of military conduct; at the latter, Dubya failed catastrophically. Obama knows his limitations as a military leader, and he knows the need to leave the command of the field to the generals and admirals.  So did Lincoln, and so did FDR. Even with their own military experience, so did Grant (a poor President in almost everything, to be sure), Truman,   Eisenhower, Kennedy, and GHWB. Presidents don't have the expertise with which to micromanage wars. I can't imagine Obama piloting a military aircraft onto a ship or a landing strip with "Mission Accomplished" banners awaiting him. Can you?   

There will be blow-ups. The Iranian political situation is a huge mess, and I wouldn't wish that mess upon my worst enemy.  We really can do nothing in Iran. The leadership rigged an election and did a poor job of it. Maybe the Iranian people are on the brink of transforming its fake democracy into a real one -- and I couldn't imagine a better ally than a democratic Iran in resolving Iraq and Afghanistan. North Korea? I think that the easiest solution is for us to give China every cause to turn North Korea into a satellite. Remember: the Soviets were very effective at keeping countries like Poland and East Germany from establishing nuke programs, and that there have been arguments that after Nicolae Ceausescu started feelers with "Agent 235" (a reference to the fissile isotope of uranium) the KGB arranged his demise in 1989 in the form of a proletarian revolution.  The family Cessna wasn't headed for the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, or Hungary.  Don't be surprised if the People's Republic of China does much the same with the current leadership of North Korea.

When the President is perceived as having taken all due care and things go badly because of the caprice of some foreign leader, we fault the foreign leader.  We Americans appreciate caution as a military and diplomatic virtue. We insist on solutions for our vulnerabilities, and we get those solutions. Obama gets a free pass for a while should bad things be clearly not his fault. The sword? He's no soldier. We have a very effective military, and Obama shows no desire to "reform" the military except to ban torture of captives, which is in fact a reversion to a norm that existed before Dubya.

As Hurricane Season approaches, you can be sure that Obama has already been making arrangements to ensure that there will be no fiasco analogous to the bungled response to Katrina.

[pbrower2a]

HUCKABEE WILL NOT LOSE UTAH IN 2012!

Or.. IDAHO OR WYOMING

Huckabee (or any other GOP nominee) loses Utah if he alienates the LDS Church and fails to make amends. Mormons will gladly show someone who shows disrespect for the locally-powerful LDS Church that their conservative Republican votes are not to be taken for granted. Obama can make a couple of appearances in the few small-to-large cities of Utah and raise Mormons for taking care of their own while showing a resolute expression of respect for religious diversity -- including the LDS Church.

I may be discussing an unlikely scenario, but one that has yet to be proven impossible. Any Republican who throws away Utah's six electoral votes throws away six electoral votes that the GOP can't afford to lose. For the GOP every electoral vote is precious. It may be up to Mike Huckabee to patch relations between his conservatism and LDS conservatism.

[pbrower2a]

[
Mormons are used to not being considered wholly human by their allies. They resent it, but they won't rebel over it.

A Mormon candidate would have massive problems with non-Mormon fundamentalist Christians, but not the other way round.

True -- but no Presidential candidate has ever gone so far as to tell Mormons that their religion is a sham or something to that effect and gotten away with it. In an election that means little to them other than that, they can embarrass a defamer of Mormonism the one way possible.

[pbrower2a]

Obama has a rough first term and campaign, loses all the states he lost in 2008, plus every state he won by 8% or less, even Virginia where is approval is now 59% approve 36% disapprove.
(Wikipedia estimates of 2012 Electoral College)

Obama 271
Republican 267

Or does well, people get used to him as president, economy begins to recover, he wins all the 2008 Obama states plus every state he lost by 8% or less.

(my modification)

Obama        400
Republican   138

He would likely win Arizona because it doesn't have a Favorite Son running for President. Eastern Nebraska is much like Iowa.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Or perhaps fouling up the response to a natural disaster as badly as the Bush Administration fouled up the response to Hurricane Katrina. I can't be sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Obama has already discussed such scenarios as "Category 5 Hurricane", "Really Nasty Earthquake", and "Volcanic Eruption" with the Cabinet.

That is the point. If we Americans fail at our economic and military responsibilities, then so does Obama. If we succeed as a people, doing what we used to do well before Dubya became President, then Obama will succeed in winning re-election. Paradoxically that could be things that we usually associate with Republicans -- like starting new businesses to fill the needs that Big Business left behind and making low-yield, long-term, illiquid investments in plant and equipment.

The GOP has no charismatic figure capable of offering anything (other than appeals to the usual GOP clienteles) that Obama can't offer.

 

[pbrower2a]

Mediocre Obama Presidency meets a mediocre-to-poor GOP nominee for President (Egad, 2004 all over, withe the GOP equivalent of John Kerry!)

Obama                271
GOP  nominee    268

Obama's campaign will practically colonize Nevada, with paid staffers changing their legal residence to Nevada so that they can vote there.   The election will hinge upon Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Virginia. Obama's margins drop severely in the Blue Firewall, but enough only to lose New Hampshire. Obama barely wins the electoral vote but loses the popular vote.