… Obama vs. Limbaugh?

[pbrower2a]

Electoral blowout for Obama. I'm not sure that I need a map.

Limbaugh is a gaffe machine, and what he gets away with with his audience he could never get away with with America at large. He has no legislative record, and the only administrative experience that he has ever had is in his titular role of running his radio show. The "child with a daisy" ad used against Barry Goldwater in 1964 would be even more fitting with Limbaugh.

Limbaugh can easily be cast as a radical and an extremist, especially after his "I want Obama to fail" statement.  To be sure, a conservative has the right to tell Americans that all that was wrong with the American economy was that people lost faith in tax cuts for the rich, cartels, and despotic management and that the solution to economic woes in the aftermath of a financial panic is to relieve the rich of taxes, promote cartels and combinations, and to enable management to do even nastier things to people.  Radicals do not want change within the System; they want the System to fail. So it is with commies who want the collapse of capitalism and with fascists who want people to fear the decay of social order. Sure, he backtracked a little... but too late.

Add to this Limbaugh's documented drug problem -- abuse of prescription painkillers. This man bulled a domestic servant to procure oxycontin on the street. Master of the Universe who can't control himself -- we have seen far too much of that in recent years, and it's hard to believe that we will seek such as leadership for decades again.   

[pbrower2a]

Obama        (D)           479    
Limbaugh    (R)               1
Huckabee   (Reform)    58

Assume a third-party defection. Huckabee (the Reform Party welcomes him) and Limbaugh split the white vote in Mississippi enough for Obama to win Mississippi. Obama makes a couple stops in Utah and Idaho to denounce drugs and religious bigotry and ends up getting more votes than either Huckabee or Limbaugh.

Obama makes history as the first Presidential candidate to win by more than 80% in any state (Hawaii) and comes close in another (77% in Rhode Island). NE-03 splits 42-36-22 to give Limbaugh one electoral vote.

[pbrower2a]

Obama makes history as the first Presidential candidate to win by more than 80% in any state (Hawaii) and comes close in another (77% in Rhode Island).

In 1932, 36, 40, and 44, FDR won MS and SC by more than 90%.  In 1932, he also won LA and GA by more than 80%.
[/quote]

Most Southern elections of the time would not now qualify as free elections (racial exclusions, property qualifications  that most people couldn't meet).

[pbrower2a]

Obama would probably lose two potential constituencies: bullies and abusers of prescription drugs.

[pbrower2a]

Alright. Let's get to it.…

2012 presidential election:
Barack Obama (D-Illinois), the incumbent vs. Rush Limbaugh (R-Missouri), the challenger.

What will the results of the electoral map look like?

Limbaugh is a really intelligent man and unlike the liberal talkers who just whine and play victim he suggests real solutions to problems.  Even so why would we go with a guy who has a checked past with drugs (assuming the liberal media told the truth about that -- and that's a BIG assumtion.) and three marriages?

Intelligence isn't enough. By all accounts, Josef Stalin was an intelligent man.  

The abuse of prescription pain-killers is a "there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I" matter. For good reason narcotics of any kind are strictly regulated. Before he got hooked on them Limbaugh was a strident opponent of drug use and a proponent of harsh punishments for drug offenders. Once he got hooked on them he bullied his maid into getting him oxycontin from the Street.

Leona Helmsley went to a federal prison for tax fraud -- but what got her into huge trouble (aside from her contention that "only the little people pay taxes") was that she bullied accountants (whom she treated with the usual respect that aristocrats show to "hired help") into cheating on her behalf just to keep their jobs. 

Nobody "has" a drug habit; a drug habit owns the addict.

Druggie and bully -- are you serious? Better than Charles Manson, I suppose, but I'd never vote for a bully or a drug addict for President.

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Demint? Far to the right of mainstream America. Coburn? likewise.  Thune? Imaginable compromise candidate in a brokered convention.. unlikely to raise enthusiasm.  They excite the base of the Party but little else.

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That was not enough to get John Kerry, as mediocre a Presidential candidate as there could be, to defeat Dubya.  If you think that Obama can be defeated because of his ideology, then remember that many liberals said much the same about Ronald Reagan. Obama's political skills are much those of Ronald Reagan.

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Humbug!

[pbrower2a]

One possible  scenario: Huckabee thinks that he has no chance  in the GOP primaries and runs as the Reform candidate.

Obama        (D)           479    
Limbaugh    (R)               1
Huckabee   (Reform)    58

Assume a third-party defection. Huckabee (the Reform Party welcomes him) and Limbaugh split the white vote in Mississippi enough for Obama to win Mississippi. Obama makes a couple stops in Utah and Idaho to denounce drugs and religious bigotry and ends up getting more votes than either Huckabee or Limbaugh.

NE-03 splits 42-36-22 to give Limbaugh one electoral vote.

Yes, I think that Limbaugh is that unattractive a candidate. He finishes third in his home state (Missouri).

Scenarios with other possible third-party candidates might suggest themselves.

Question: why would Limbaugh give up his very lucrative career as a shock jock of politics?

[pbrower2a]

My question is "why would Limbaugh run as a Republican"?  He seems to care more for ratings than their success.

Or have I answered my own question?

He also loves his adulating fan base of ditto heads. Running for public office he would realize quickly that the majority of Americans don't like him or would think him irrelevant to the problems of the times.