A landslide for the Republicans?

[President von Cat]

I'd also just like to note that the OP referred to 230 EVs as "well above" McCain's total.

McCain's total of 229?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

jcm, I could care less. You have been spamming the board for the past few days with total and unfiltered glee at economic numbers

2003: jmfcst get's called cheerleader for posting ECRI's call fastest expansion since 1983
2008: jmfcst is accused of being a doomster for posting ECRI's call of worse economic decline since Great Depression
2009: jmfcst get's called a cheerleader for posting ECRI's call for imminent recovery
2011: jmfcst is accused of being "gleeful" of double dib for posting ECRI's call for new recession

oh well, I can't win for forwarding winning predictions, so I guess I'll go crawl in a hole (or is it a dip?) and cry 

[President von Cat]

Except that you rob yourself of all credibility/objectivity by prefacing your innocent "announcements" with OBAMA DOOMED TO LOSE, REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE IMMINENT.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Except that you rob yourself of all credibility/objectivity by prefacing your innocent "announcements" with OBAMA DOOMED TO LOSE, REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE IMMINENT.

so, now I can't give political analysis on the 2012 election board?

...whining about jmfcst doesn't change the fact that your Hope and Change guy is a one termer.

[President von Cat]

Except that you rob yourself of all credibility/objectivity by prefacing your innocent "announcements" with OBAMA DOOMED TO LOSE, REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE IMMINENT.

so, now I can't give political analysis on the 2012 election board?

...whining about jmfcst doesn't change the fact that your Hope and Change guy is a one termer.

Haha, as if one line about your political wet dreams counts as analysis. And again, here we go with your gloating/trolling. But its in your sig, so I guess I can't complain. But come on, man, don't be bashful about what you're doing. Be honest: you're using statistics to dance on the grave of Obama's 2012 campaign. You're free to do that, but don't act like there's something deeper to your posts.

He's not "my" Hope and Change guy, btw.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Haha, as if one line about your political wet dreams counts as analysis. And again, here we go with your gloating/trolling.

trust me, you're vastly underestimating my ability to gloat and troll.  In fact, calling my recent posts gloating/trolling is quite insulting.  Stick around in the next 13 months and I'll show you a couple of things.

[President von Cat]

Whatever you say, internet tough guy.

[redcommander]

It's definitely possible, although this far out polls are going to remain somewhat close. By Summer of next year we should have a better idea, but at the moment a lot of predictions are just based on gut and speculation.

[pbrower2a]

8. It is the economy. But Republicans now have some culpability for any economic slowdown.

The American people have never blamed Congress instead of the President for the economy.  You're dreaming if you think that approach is going to work. 


Besides, you think the American people forget that Obama had 2 years of a super majority in Congress?  By Nov 2012 unemployment is going to be >10% and the deficit is going to be around $2T/year.

(Spelling errors or typos, and an inappropriate abbreviation altered. Please use spell-check!)

"It has never happened before" is not a valid excuse for denying the consequences of unprecedented reality. Everything that ever happens is a consequence of some combination of circumstance and random chance. Wait long enough, and anything not impossible will eventually happen. That's not to say that such will happen at a time and place of your convenience.

1. We have never seen one Party so seek the political demise of a President the other Party that it seeks an economic calamity to discredit him. Democrats wanted Herbert Hoover to succeed in getting out of the 1929-1932 meltdown. Republicans were satisfied adequately that Harry Truman was so awful that he could never be re-elected that the election of Thomas E. Dewey was a certainty. Democratic liberals thought Reagan awful -- but effective. Yes, we largely thought that Dubya was so bad that he could collapse on his own after America started to see some bad times in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of the quick, profitable wars. Even if those wars were either bungled, illegal, or both, we liberals wanted Dubya to succeed. 

2. If your side gets the economic collapse that propels your side into the super-majority of your dreams, then America is in deep trouble. Have you thought of how even more intense economic failure would look here? How certain are you that the Republicans with their current ideology can improve the economic realities of America for anyone without making conditions far worse? Sure, you could get more employment -- if people are obliged to take any employment on any terms and can leave only if their employers approve (that's the economic 'miracle' of the Third Reich; German toilers got no more than what their employers deemed absolutely necessary for bare sustenance, and that was highly unpopular in any country that fell under Nazi rule. The Soviet 'miracle' worked on a similar principle, and people knew enough to avoid complaining about it because the Gulag was worse).   

3. The President now gets far more respect than does Congress -- especially Republicans in Congress. Your favorite politicians get about 15% higher approval ratings than does Casey Anthony get for a Mother of the Year contest. Get it?

4. The Tea Party is extremely unpopular. Approval ratings for Governors Walker (Wisconsin), Snyder (Michigan), Kasich (Ohio), and Scott (Florida) are in the sewer because of extremism and dictatorial tendencies. So much for the rising tide of the Hard Right! If these fellows were so successful at convincing people in their states once elected of the merits of the Hard Right agenda, then you would have a case. People would be talking about them as the likely saviors of America and seeking to elect them and give them dictatorial powers.

5. Even with the President's approval ratings around 40% he was often leading all putative Republican challengers in some states (at times Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio) that the Republican nominee absolutely can't afford to lose. If the President were so awful he would be losing all over those states instead of being close. Any republican with any level of political acumen could offer some credible alternative. Do you see that? "Anyone but Obama" is no program.

6. Deficits are little more than accounting entries in a Depression.  They are then inevitable and necessary; they are corrections that raise incomes and create more of a tax base. In this "Little Depression" -- this is not the sort of recession that you knew could possibly know in full unless you are about 85 -- the deficits are going to do more good than harm.       



     

[milhouse24]

8. It is the economy. But Republicans now have some culpability for any economic slowdown.

The American people have never blamed Congress instead of the President for the economy.  You're dreaming if you think that approach is going to work. 


Besides, you think the American people forget that Obama had 2 years of a super majority in Congress?  By Nov 2012 unemployment is going to be >10% and the deficit is going to be around $2T/year.

(Spelling errors or typos, and an inappropriate abbreviation altered. Please use spell-check!)

"It has never happened before" is not a valid excuse for denying the consequences of unprecedented reality. Everything that ever happens is a consequence of some combination of circumstance and random chance. Wait long enough, and anything not impossible will eventually happen. That's not to say that such will happen at a time and place of your convenience.

1. We have never seen one Party so seek the political demise of a President the other Party that it seeks an economic calamity to discredit him. Democrats wanted Herbert Hoover to succeed in getting out of the 1929-1932 meltdown. Republicans were satisfied adequately that Harry Truman was so awful that he could never be re-elected that the election of Thomas E. Dewey was a certainty. Democratic liberals thought Reagan awful -- but effective. Yes, we largely thought that Dubya was so bad that he could collapse on his own after America started to see some bad times in Afghanistan and Iraq instead of the quick, profitable wars. Even if those wars were either bungled, illegal, or both, we liberals wanted Dubya to succeed. 

2. If your side gets the economic collapse that propels your side into the super-majority of your dreams, then America is in deep trouble. Have you thought of how even more intense economic failure would look here? How certain are you that the Republicans with their current ideology can improve the economic realities of America for anyone without making conditions far worse? Sure, you could get more employment -- if people are obliged to take any employment on any terms and can leave only if their employers approve (that's the economic 'miracle' of the Third Reich; German toilers got no more than what their employers deemed absolutely necessary for bare sustenance, and that was highly unpopular in any country that fell under Nazi rule. The Soviet 'miracle' worked on a similar principle, and people knew enough to avoid complaining about it because the Gulag was worse).   

3. The President now gets far more respect than does Congress -- especially Republicans in Congress. Your favorite politicians get about 15% higher approval ratings than does Casey Anthony get for a Mother of the Year contest. Get it?

4. The Tea Party is extremely unpopular. Approval ratings for Governors Walker (Wisconsin), Snyder (Michigan), Kasich (Ohio), and Scott (Florida) are in the sewer because of extremism and dictatorial tendencies. So much for the rising tide of the Hard Right! If these fellows were so successful at convincing people in their states once elected of the merits of the Hard Right agenda, then you would have a case. People would be talking about them as the likely saviors of America and seeking to elect them and give them dictatorial powers.

5. Even with the President's approval ratings around 40% he was often leading all putative Republican challengers in some states (at times Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio) that the Republican nominee absolutely can't afford to lose. If the President were so awful he would be losing all over those states instead of being close. Any republican with any level of political acumen could offer some credible alternative. Do you see that? "Anyone but Obama" is no program.

6. Deficits are little more than accounting entries in a Depression.  They are then inevitable and necessary; they are corrections that raise incomes and create more of a tax base. In this "Little Depression" -- this is not the sort of recession that you knew could possibly know in full unless you are about 85 -- the deficits are going to do more good than harm.       



     

I don't think Obama can hold a candle to Harry Truman.  As the old saying goes " I knew Harry Truman, and Barack Obama is no Harry Truman" 

Truman was far more accomplished and smarter than Obama is at this stage of his life and service. 

I just think its naive to think that just because Truman barely survived re-election, that means that Obama will just barely survive re-election.

When, in fact, it proves that despite Truman's accomplishments, he just BARELY survived. 

Now compare Truman to Obama, and there is no comparison, Obama will lose under the same circumstances if he was in Truman's place. 

The fact is that GOOD Presidents get re-elected, and Dumb Presidents don't get re-elected. 

Jimmy Carter and GHWB were just incapable of serving the all encompassing role and responsibilities of the presidency.  In fact, I would argue that Carter and Bush 1, were just plain lucky to win the presidency in the first place, NOT on their own merits, but based on National circumstances that had nothing to do with them, but other politicians. 

Carter (1 term governor) became the "Evangelical Savior" after the Nixon/Ford criminal debacle. 

GHWB became president solely on riding the coattails of Ronald Reagan's popularity. 

Barack Obama became the poster boy for the "Anti-Bush/Anti-War" crowd, and his election was more of a repudiation of the Iraq War, than anything Obama did in his professional service or personal life. 

All 3 of these men were not prepared to handle the crises of the presidency, but won based on luck in being at the right place at the right time. 

[Wonkish1]

Whatever you say, internet tough guy.

Who is that in your avatar?

[Wonkish1]

I  predicted in 2007 that obama would beat the clintons and become the nominee and obama would beat mccain. I believe mitt romney will be the nominee but as far as mitt romney vs  obama way to early anything can happen. I will say alot of people will be shock and upset.

I don't believe that you accurately predicted in mid 08 that McCain would take the nomination. Nobody was making that bet. He was crashing like a rock and seemed to have absolutely 0 base of support. The rest I can believe though

I also predicted in 2007 that Obama would beat the Clintons and that he would beat the GOP nominee whoever that would end up being. And I'm coming out on the opposite side of you and am going to say that it will be somebody other than Romney who will pick up the nomination.

[Wonkish1]

ok i will bet you $10 grand that romney will be the nominee. want to exchange emails??

Well, I doubt you have $10 grand to play around with. But I'm curious as to why you think he's such a lock on the nomination?

[Peeperkorn]

ok i will bet you $10 grand that romney will be the nominee. want to exchange emails??

Well, I doubt you have $10 grand to play around with. But I'm curious as to why you think he's such a lock on the nomination?

Probably he is a volunteer for Romney campaign.

Kind of sad.

[Wonkish1]

Well apparently he got deleted, booted, or something because he's off the thread completely.

[Wonkish1]

i am still waiting on your answer. i deleted them myself

So you actually think someone will take you seriously when you offer to bet them $10 thousand dollars?

Look, if you want your answer its no. I don't think you have the money, I don't think you would pay it if you lose. I think that anybody handicapping this thing would say that odds between Romney and someone else is reasonably close to 50-50. While I could make that bet, I have never gambled in any amount even close to that because I don't like to gamble much. Plus, there is a certain degree of anonymity that I don't like to ever come close to breaking online.

That said, there is no way that you were remotely serious with you $10k bet, and you know it. So stop wasting my time.

[Peeperkorn]

I also predicted the 2010 elections.

Congratulations, Nostradamus.

Why did you delete your previous posts?

[pbrower2a]

8. It is the economy. But Republicans now have some culpability for any economic slowdown.

The American people have never blamed Congress instead of the President for the economy.  You're dreaming if you think that approach is going to work. 


Besides, you think the American people forget that Obama had 2 years of a super majority in Congress?  By Nov 2012 unemployment is going to be >10% and the deficit is going to be around $2T/year.

(Spelling errors or typos, and an inappropriate abbreviation altered. Please use spell-check!)

(my stuff deleted for brevity)
     

I don't think Obama can hold a candle to Harry Truman.  As the old saying goes " I knew Harry Truman, and Barack Obama is no Harry Truman" 

Truman was far more accomplished and smarter than Obama is at this stage of his life and service. 

I just think its naive to think that just because Truman barely survived re-election, that means that Obama will just barely survive re-election.

When, in fact, it proves that despite Truman's accomplishments, he just BARELY survived. 

Now compare Truman to Obama, and there is no comparison, Obama will lose under the same circumstances if he was in Truman's place. 

The fact is that GOOD Presidents get re-elected, and Dumb Presidents don't get re-elected. 

Jimmy Carter and GHWB were just incapable of serving the all encompassing role and responsibilities of the presidency.  In fact, I would argue that Carter and Bush 1, were just plain lucky to win the presidency in the first place, NOT on their own merits, but based on National circumstances that had nothing to do with them, but other politicians. 

Carter (1 term governor) became the "Evangelical Savior" after the Nixon/Ford criminal debacle. 

GHWB became president solely on riding the coattails of Ronald Reagan's popularity. 

Barack Obama became the poster boy for the "Anti-Bush/Anti-War" crowd, and his election was more of a repudiation of the Iraq War, than anything Obama did in his professional service or personal life. 

All 3 of these men were not prepared to handle the crises of the presidency, but won based on luck in being at the right place at the right time. 

One thing that President Obama is not is "dumb". You might have more of a case if you were to say that the President drew the wrong conclusions from his learning as Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter were both technically trained and poor fits for the Presidency; both were brilliant, but both had the wrong learning for the Presidency. The astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a brilliant fellow, but he would be an incompetent politician. Richard Nixon had most of the traits that make a superb politician, but he had some questionable characteristics that manifested themselves in the moral failures of his Administration.

Barack Obama is unique among the Presidents of the United States. People can see anything that they want in him; they can see FDR if they wish and they can see Jimmy Carter. If they despise his policies and ideology they see him as Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover.

The 2010 election suggests the 1946 election and Harry Truman, a politician that the Republicans thought that they had defeated decisively and discredited. "To err is Truman" was a commonplace smear.  Of course that is no good analogue in some respects; Truman had never been elected President, he had a much longer political career, and he had far lesser formal education. It would be nearly impossible for someone like Truman to miss out on college; he would have been more polished as a politician for having gone through a four-year university. Truman had military experience and private-sector experience as an entrepreneur (good officer, unsuccessful entrepreneur).  Truman followed the most successful President in American history; Barack Obama follows what may be the worst.

I look at 2010 and I see 1946 in some respects. The big difference of course is that the Democrats lost House and Senate majorities that they had held for sixteen years; the Republicans in 2010 had been in the political wilderness for only four years. Truman couldn't hold a candle to FDR who had generally been beyond criticism from the Pearl Harbor attack to his death; Truman got caught up in the loose ends of a faulty settlement of the war. In contrast President Obama could never undo the damage of  two bungled wars for profit and the collapse of a corrupt bubble-economy. Americans got impatient when everything did not go right all at once and did Phase I of turning America into a right-wing plutocracy in 1946 and 2010 alike. As in 1948 I expect the American electorate of 2012 to be impatient with Phase I of turning America into a right-wing plutocracy.  This time the Republicans are far less subtle than they were in the 1940s, and many of the 'winners' of 2010 would not be re-elected. Take a good look at the approval ratings for Congress, especially of Congressional Republicans, and imagine how President Obama could be dense enough to not recognize the one strategy that can rescue him.  Hint: every House seat will be up for grabs.

Truman did not 'barely survive'. He won 49.55% of the popular vote against the 45.07% of the popular vote of Thomas E. Dewey. He won 303 electoral votes (57.1%) despite two dissenting wings of the Democratic party (Henry Wallace's Progressives who thought that Harry Truman hadn't gone far enough  on socialism and had gone too far in confronting Stalin and the racist movement of Strom Thurmond). If you figure that supporters of both Wallace and Thurmond would have never gone for Dewey, then you figure that  without those dissenting wings, the President would have had an electoral landslide. Truman won with a 4% plurality over Dewey nationwide.

That will not quite be imitated in 2012. So far there is no left-wing alternative to President Obama, and there is no racist wing of the Democratic Party likely to defect (the political descendants of the Dixiecrats are now a core constituency of the Republican Party).

Take a good look at 1948 again; add the votes of Truman and Wallace in Michigan, New York, and Oregon; Truman, Wallace, and Thurmond in Maryland and he gets another 80 electoral votes there, and the 39 electoral votes that Thurmond got, and Truman wins a clear majority of the popular vote and 424 electoral votes...  

Back when the President's approval was in the low forties the President still seemed to be winning matchups with Mitt Romney in Wisconsin (which Kerry came close to losing) and Ohio (which the GOP nominee absolutely must win to have a chance). The Republican nominee for President still has to face the slickest campaign apparatus in American history, one that will stop at nothing to register as many new voters as possible. The Obama campaign succeeded in 2008 in turning not-so-likely voters into voters, and I expect it to try again what it did in 2008.  We all know the limitations of this President, but at least we have a good idea of who will be the VP nominee. We don't know who the Republican nominee for VP will be. If Mitt Romney gets an ideological attack dog as a running mate so that the GOP can satisfy the Hard Right base, then whatever credibility Mitt Romney has among moderate independents goes down the drain. That's before you suggest Perry, Palin, or Bachmann.

A RINO would now defeat President Obama.  But after the effective purge of Republican moderates, what remains of them?  

How much you despise this President means nothing any more than people who thought much the same of Ronald Reagan in 1983 meant anything. You cannot convince people who think that President Obama is better the GOP alternatives that the President is a moral failure out of touch with some purported truth that emanates from Rush Limbaugh, FoX Newspeak Channel, or sold-out think-tanks of the Right. Your side has gone as far as it can with a strategy good for winning one election, but it has shown that it has nothing that didn't fail in the recent past.  

We are not going to have another speculative boom for a very long time, but the GOP seems to suggest that the way to create new prosperity is to return to the economic principles that underpinned the Dubya-era boom in real estate.  

 

[Wonkish1]

We are not going to have another speculative boom for a very long time, but the GOP seems to suggest that the way to create new prosperity is to return to the economic principles that underpinned the Dubya-era boom in real estate.  

Really, you sure about that?

Trust me the underpinnings of the next speculative boom are already in place. And its going to be another big one.

Its not regulation that stops speculative booms, its loose money that fuels them. We'll have another big one in not too many years.

[The_Texas_Libertarian]

It obviously depends on what defines a landslide

I wouldn't even call 2008 a landslide, but a substantial victory.  Landslides in my opinion are 400+ electoral vote territory for the winner.  Now if the conservative dream comes true and everything the conservatives want to happen do such as unemployment moving up to 12%, Obama is found ripping apart the constitution while singing the Soviet Anthem, the birther movement comes back with a legitimate looking birth certificate from Indonesia or Kenya or whatever African country, etc.  Then we could see a GOP landslide

However reality is what dictates election results, not what the conservatives wish would happen

[krazen1211]

Non-incumbents generally do not win landslides. The highest share of the popular vote in recent times was Eisenhower at 55%;

[Averroës Nix]

BREAKING NEWS
                                        romney has won the 2012  primary



Rick perry has conceded


yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the first Mormon to ever be the republican nominee


I am mormon myself

Assuming your posts are not some bizarre form of online Dada performance art, what could you possibly hope to add to any conversation with this inanity?

[milhouse24]

8. It is the economy. But Republicans now have some culpability for any economic slowdown.

The American people have never blamed Congress instead of the President for the economy.  You're dreaming if you think that approach is going to work. 


Besides, you think the American people forget that Obama had 2 years of a super majority in Congress?  By Nov 2012 unemployment is going to be >10% and the deficit is going to be around $2T/year.

(Spelling errors or typos, and an inappropriate abbreviation altered. Please use spell-check!)

(my stuff deleted for brevity)
     

I don't think Obama can hold a candle to Harry Truman.  As the old saying goes " I knew Harry Truman, and Barack Obama is no Harry Truman" 

Truman was far more accomplished and smarter than Obama is at this stage of his life and service. 

I just think its naive to think that just because Truman barely survived re-election, that means that Obama will just barely survive re-election.

When, in fact, it proves that despite Truman's accomplishments, he just BARELY survived. 

Now compare Truman to Obama, and there is no comparison, Obama will lose under the same circumstances if he was in Truman's place. 

The fact is that GOOD Presidents get re-elected, and Dumb Presidents don't get re-elected. 

Jimmy Carter and GHWB were just incapable of serving the all encompassing role and responsibilities of the presidency.  In fact, I would argue that Carter and Bush 1, were just plain lucky to win the presidency in the first place, NOT on their own merits, but based on National circumstances that had nothing to do with them, but other politicians. 

Carter (1 term governor) became the "Evangelical Savior" after the Nixon/Ford criminal debacle. 

GHWB became president solely on riding the coattails of Ronald Reagan's popularity. 

Barack Obama became the poster boy for the "Anti-Bush/Anti-War" crowd, and his election was more of a repudiation of the Iraq War, than anything Obama did in his professional service or personal life. 

All 3 of these men were not prepared to handle the crises of the presidency, but won based on luck in being at the right place at the right time. 

One thing that President Obama is not is "dumb". You might have more of a case if you were to say that the President drew the wrong conclusions from his learning as Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter were both technically trained and poor fits for the Presidency; both were brilliant, but both had the wrong learning for the Presidency. The astronomer Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a brilliant fellow, but he would be an incompetent politician. Richard Nixon had most of the traits that make a superb politician, but he had some questionable characteristics that manifested themselves in the moral failures of his Administration.

Barack Obama is unique among the Presidents of the United States. People can see anything that they want in him; they can see FDR if they wish and they can see Jimmy Carter. If they despise his policies and ideology they see him as Jimmy Carter or Herbert Hoover.

The 2010 election suggests the 1946 election and Harry Truman, a politician that the Republicans thought that they had defeated decisively and discredited. "To err is Truman" was a commonplace smear.  Of course that is no good analogue in some respects; Truman had never been elected President, he had a much longer political career, and he had far lesser formal education. It would be nearly impossible for someone like Truman to miss out on college; he would have been more polished as a politician for having gone through a four-year university. Truman had military experience and private-sector experience as an entrepreneur (good officer, unsuccessful entrepreneur).  Truman followed the most successful President in American history; Barack Obama follows what may be the worst.

I look at 2010 and I see 1946 in some respects. The big difference of course is that the Democrats lost House and Senate majorities that they had held for sixteen years; the Republicans in 2010 had been in the political wilderness for only four years. Truman couldn't hold a candle to FDR who had generally been beyond criticism from the Pearl Harbor attack to his death; Truman got caught up in the loose ends of a faulty settlement of the war. In contrast President Obama could never undo the damage of  two bungled wars for profit and the collapse of a corrupt bubble-economy. Americans got impatient when everything did not go right all at once and did Phase I of turning America into a right-wing plutocracy in 1946 and 2010 alike. As in 1948 I expect the American electorate of 2012 to be impatient with Phase I of turning America into a right-wing plutocracy.  This time the Republicans are far less subtle than they were in the 1940s, and many of the 'winners' of 2010 would not be re-elected. Take a good look at the approval ratings for Congress, especially of Congressional Republicans, and imagine how President Obama could be dense enough to not recognize the one strategy that can rescue him.  Hint: every House seat will be up for grabs.

Truman did not 'barely survive'. He won 49.55% of the popular vote against the 45.07% of the popular vote of Thomas E. Dewey. He won 303 electoral votes (57.1%) despite two dissenting wings of the Democratic party (Henry Wallace's Progressives who thought that Harry Truman hadn't gone far enough  on socialism and had gone too far in confronting Stalin and the racist movement of Strom Thurmond). If you figure that supporters of both Wallace and Thurmond would have never gone for Dewey, then you figure that  without those dissenting wings, the President would have had an electoral landslide. Truman won with a 4% plurality over Dewey nationwide.

That will not quite be imitated in 2012. So far there is no left-wing alternative to President Obama, and there is no racist wing of the Democratic Party likely to defect (the political descendants of the Dixiecrats are now a core constituency of the Republican Party).

Take a good look at 1948 again; add the votes of Truman and Wallace in Michigan, New York, and Oregon; Truman, Wallace, and Thurmond in Maryland and he gets another 80 electoral votes there, and the 39 electoral votes that Thurmond got, and Truman wins a clear majority of the popular vote and 424 electoral votes...  

Back when the President's approval was in the low forties the President still seemed to be winning matchups with Mitt Romney in Wisconsin (which Kerry came close to losing) and Ohio (which the GOP nominee absolutely must win to have a chance). The Republican nominee for President still has to face the slickest campaign apparatus in American history, one that will stop at nothing to register as many new voters as possible. The Obama campaign succeeded in 2008 in turning not-so-likely voters into voters, and I expect it to try again what it did in 2008.  We all know the limitations of this President, but at least we have a good idea of who will be the VP nominee. We don't know who the Republican nominee for VP will be. If Mitt Romney gets an ideological attack dog as a running mate so that the GOP can satisfy the Hard Right base, then whatever credibility Mitt Romney has among moderate independents goes down the drain. That's before you suggest Perry, Palin, or Bachmann.

A RINO would now defeat President Obama.  But after the effective purge of Republican moderates, what remains of them?  

How much you despise this President means nothing any more than people who thought much the same of Ronald Reagan in 1983 meant anything. You cannot convince people who think that President Obama is better the GOP alternatives that the President is a moral failure out of touch with some purported truth that emanates from Rush Limbaugh, FoX Newspeak Channel, or sold-out think-tanks of the Right. Your side has gone as far as it can with a strategy good for winning one election, but it has shown that it has nothing that didn't fail in the recent past.  

We are not going to have another speculative boom for a very long time, but the GOP seems to suggest that the way to create new prosperity is to return to the economic principles that underpinned the Dubya-era boom in real estate.  

 

Ah yes, the old Obama is an intellectual and too smart to actually be president, he deserves to be a professor at Harvard and not at the White House where he has to deal with the problems of uneducated commoners.  Seriously, there comes a point where you have to realize that being book-smart does not make you a good leader, manager, or executive, which often comes from experience.  In fact, I would argue that Mitt Romney also went to Harvard Law and HBS, and is book-smart and an even better manager and leader than Obama ever will be.  If you are looking purely at intellectuals, then Mitt Romney deserves your vote. 

There are some brilliant people that are just not capable of fulfilling all the duties required by the Presidency and they make dumb bad decisions, or no decisions, or are push-overs to their advisers because they have no expertise in crucial areas.  Obama might be one of these people. 

Truman was actually a really good president in his first term, and the "Dewey defeats Truman" was inaccurate in polling.  Truman should have always won and it was never really a close call against Dewey.  On the other hand, I think Obama pales in his first term to Truman in everything Truman was as a person or did as president.  I think it does Truman a disservice to say that Obama and him are equals.