If the Presidential Election Was This Year...

[pbrower2a]

...Obama would lose. Shame a few million people couldn't see the shambles his presidency has been.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

His numbers are even worse for his handling of the economy (average support 38.1%), and for his foreign policy (39.0%).

Let's be honest:

He's been a poor president - Aloof, arrogant, and no leadership skills in anything he does. He dithers and messes things up, and thinks "leading from behind" is good.

The polls cratered over troubles with a federal website. If people can't keep their 'old' health insurance -- what they couldn't keep was something inadequate. Some of that insurance is nothing more than a discount plan in which the 'insurer' finds providers wiling to undercut others, the insurer simply splitting the difference. Some are nearly-worthless policies with deductibles that are more than the customer's life savings.

Maybe you understand auto insurance better. You are more likely to total a car than get a diagnosis of cancer. If you bought 'insurance' that simply directed you to a cut-rate repair ship (maybe one that uses parts from stolen vehicles) or had a $10K deductible on a $14K car would you have good insurance? Not good enough for the lender!

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Medical costs were soaring. The world's most costly system of medical payments saps American competitiveness in manufacturing. We are losing well-paid jobs because American medical costs are higher than those in any other industrialized country. What we end up with is jobs in which the employer pays Third World wages and expects people to buy their own health insurance or take the gamble and do without.

Barack Obama tried to do something. Is it enough? No. We would be better off with a public option, one financed through a VAT and excise taxes so that those who are able to buy the bounty of capitalist productivity pay for the insurance of those who get paid little because such is 'competition'.

Because of its health care system Canada has an economic advantage over the US.  

Benghazi? Give him credit for greasing the skids (to Hell) for a very nasty dictator. So Libya doesn't have a fully modern police force because the secret police of Moammar Qaddafi enforced order by tortures and summary executions? Give us all a break.

NSA? It operates by its own rules. We should not be spying on foreign leaders who aren't enemies of the United States. That has been going on for decades. Of course I want it to end.

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Have you ever golfed? It's a great way of clearing your mind of the cobwebs of life. Many businesses promote it among managers and executives. Any journey of the President is going to be expensive -- Secret Service, Air Force One, et al.

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Dubya lied to get us into a war that went very bad very fast. He bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. At the same time he sponsored a speculative boom based upon subprime lending to people who should have never bought homes -- a speculative boom sure to implode much as its analogue in the 1920s did for much the same reason.

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Software glitch -- or war gone bad. Which is more recoverable?

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There is no breaking scandal.

[pbrower2a]

This is an easy one. When the president's approval rating has been above 49%, they get re-elected. If it's below that, they lose. Romney would be president as he would've been after the first debate but before Sandy and Chris Christie's stomach could be the secretary of state and secretary of treasury.

Allow this to disabuse you of that myth:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/myth-of-incumbent-50-rule.html

By the way -- Silver expected the Democrat to hold the Governorship of Ohio and picked that one wrong in 2010 based on his theory. But overall  he found that the average incumbent who barely got re-elected had an approval rating of 44%.

But here is his analysis:

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Here are his data points from 2006 to 2009:



.....my analysis:

So what is going on? Very simply, incumbents seeking re-election campaign for re-election.  Unless they are abject failures as elected officials, they usually face weaker opponents. If they disappoint voters they show why voting for them was a mistake, they run from their records, and they lose -- or they 'choose not to run for re-election'.

It's not 'breaking scandals'. The journalists know something, and as a rule they stay away from politicians with problems. Politicians with breaking scandals usually have low approval ratings before the scandal breaks.

Opponents can take cheap shots at an elected official with impunity even if they offer no solutions. Once those opponents run against an incumbent, they must offer coherent alternatives if they are to win. Incumbents usually must campaign so that they can transform 48% approval into 50% or more of the share of the vote.

So what about the glaring exception -- a politician who had early approval over 50% and then lost? That was George Allen, an incumbent US Senator from Virginia, who represented a state drifting from solidly R to a true swing state, who faced an unusually-strong challenger, who campaigned ineptly, who faced a rapid decline in the view of his Party, and may have lost because his staffers beat a heckler.

This chart shows nothing about the 2010 election -- but Senators Feingold and Lincoln were floundering.  

[pbrower2a]

President Obama would have been campaigning all year. He would be making speeches full of campaign promises.

He's not campaigning for anything.