2012: Obama vs. Palin

[pragmatic liberal]

This is ridiculously premature, which means that any predictions made right now are basically meaningless. Still, it's fun to speculate. And in four years, someone can dig this up and either comment on how prescient we are or how absurd we are in hindsight.

What do you think the results of an Obama vs. Palin matchup in 2012 would be?

My own (biased) opinion is that Obama will be a fine president, though hardly perfect, and though the economy won't be great in 2012, it will be on the upswing. Most promising Republican candidates will wait until 2016, and Palin will get crushed by Obama.

I have no idea who Palin would select as a running mate - my guess is that a lot of ambitious Republicans would treat the ticket like the plague; maybe she selects someone like Ret. Gen. Tommy Franks or Sen. Jim DeMint.

(Note to Republicans: I am fully aware that Obama could be a disaster, though if he is, I doubt Palin will be nominated to challenge him.)

Here's my prediction:

Obama (D): 56%
Palin (R): 42%

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Palin would be nominated only if all of the "top" Republicans, like Huckabee and Romney, opt to wait for 2016, which in turn would happen only if Obama is very popular. But then, that is exactly what the question assumes.

And no, her VP would not be Jim DeMint. Anyway, in such a scenario, Obama is reelected in a landslide.

Dark red: Democratic holds
Light red: Democratic pickups
Light blue: Republican pickups
Dark blue: Republican holds

[Tender Branson]

Much depends on what happens in the next 3-4 years. I guess Obama's approval ratings will remain in the upper 50s until the end of 2009, after reaching 80% right now and after his inauguration. The reduction of about 20% is because of the bleak economic situation. But by Mid/End 2011, when Obama declares that he'll run for re-election, the economy is back on track, growing by at least 2%, unemployment is down and the budget is on the way to a surplus. Most US forces are out of Iraq, Afghanistan is going well, the concentration camp in Guantanamo is closed and Congress has passed a Universal Health Care Plan. Palin wins the crowded GOP primaries, after Mitt Romney concedes in May 2012. By the time, President Obama has already amassed a war chest of about 150 Mio. $, with Palin being near blank. Palin attacks President Obama for being a Socialist and with other idiotic ejaculations. In the debates, Obama counters with his laid back and cool attitude and by pointing out his fulfilled campaign promises. On Election Day, Palin has no chance and gets defeated 58-41.

[Nixon in '80]

If Obama looks sure to be re-elected, Palin won't run...

I know that's probably a minority view, but I'm sticking to it.

[Lunar]

Palin seems VERY eager to run and she would be peaking in 2012 (unlike Jindal), I don't know.  She is probably self confident enough to feel that if 2012 doesn't work she could still run in 2016...

[Reaganfan]

Scenario #1

President Obama holds a 50-60% approval rating through much of his time in office, the 2010 midterm are uneventful with a few pickups and holds on each side. Palin wins the nomination and raises huge sums of money, has outstanding "new age" grassroots and locks up 100% of the GOP base. Obama and Palin have a rather uneventful campaign over the still weak but improving economy.

Obama: 338
Palin: 200

Scenario #2

President Obama becomes increasingly unpopular and loses his mesmerizing appeal due to the economic situation. 2009 and 2010 are even worse economically than 2008, and Palin goes up against a much weaker President Obama.

Palin: 276
Obama: 262

[aaaa2222]

I'm sorry, but Obama will never have a surplus. The economy may be on the upswing, but bailouts will create a massive deficit.
Also, you forgot to use the projected 2012 map, so Palin would have several more EVs.

[Lunar]

yoman is correct.  MAYBE a projected budget surplus could be predicted for 2012 though, but that'd be unlikely.

The first economic stimulus package is going to be ~850 billion over two years, so I assume there will  be a second two-year plan (mmm socialist terms, don't expect the admin. to repeat that!) of 500b-1t for '11-'12.

More than four years?  Not sure.

[Holmes]

Honestly, is it even possible to have a surplus anytime in the next decade?

[aaaa2222]

It's doubtful, unless Obama makes the wise decision to slash military spending. Slashing it 50% would be a godsend for the budget, and could reduce the debt. Tis why I support the Libertarian Party.

[anvi]

Palin provided great energy to the McCain campaign when she was introduced, but the longer the campaign went, the more poorly she played in the face of the challenges the country faces, and she ended up playing poorly in all the areas where she was supposed to do well.  Instead of attracting women to the Republican ticket, she seems to have driven some away.  And the major asset of Palin, I thought, was to appeal to white male voters in the midwest and Rocky Mountain states, but the Republican ticket only carried the Dakotas by less than 10 each, Montana by a mere 3, and they even lost a little ground in Idaho compared to Bush, not to mention got washed away in Colorado and pounded in Nevada.  Palin, even at the top of the ticket, could spend as much time in the Dutch counties of Michigan and central Pennsylvania as she wants; she would still not be able to turn out enough votes to win either state given the support for Obama in the urban, suburban and exurban areas there.  She is not likely to win back Virgina or North Carolina either.  If the Republican party wants to nominate a woman in 2012, they have far better choices, because Palin will get utterly destroyed in the electoral college.  

One thing Palin got right on the money in her own post-election analysis is how devastating the loss of the Hispanic vote was the their ticket.  In my view, I think the Republicans would do well to look for a solid Hispanic candidate for 2012 in order to gain back serious ground in the electoral college.  Such a candidate could at least shake up things a little in California, definitely put Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada back in play, and likely recapture Florida.  If all these states could be peeled away from the blue column, and if we gave by defailt Indiana and North Carolina back to the Republicans (Obama won them by microscopic margins this year), Obama's electoral vote would be down to 292, and from there you make a hard run at Ohio and one other state.  Without a dramatic shakeup like this, there is just no way that the Republicans can take back the White House on '12.  Let's face it, if Obama was a formidable candidate coming out of almost nowhere in '07-'08, how is he going to perform, even if he struggles, as an incumbant president with a huge organization in '12?   I doubt in any case Obama will struggle as much as Clinton did in his first term, and Clinton was reelected over Dole in a walk.  In order to have any chance, I think the Republican party has to read the changing face of American demographics and respond appropriately.

[justfollowingtheelections]

You really think nominating a Hispanic candidate would be enough to win that demographic?
What makes you think Hispanics would vote for a party whose base is so racist and whose policies have been so anti-minorities?  I don't see any Democrats asking for English to become the official language of the United States, but I have seen many Republicans do so.  I don't see any Democrats asking for a fence on the border with Mexico but I have seen many Republicans do so. 
The only way the Republicans will be able to win minorities is by changing completely as a party, in which case the base will be forced to leave, the same way the racist Dixiecrats left the Democratic party in 1964.   

[Citizen James]

I thought people here studied history.

Many of the biggest reelection landslides in history came during troubled economic times.  

1936 - Great depression.  FDR wins reelection in a landslide (523-8 with 60% of the vote)
1964 - Stagflation. Johnson wins reelection in a landslide (486-52 with 61% of the vote)
1984 - Major recession.  Unemployment over 7%.  Reagan wins in a landslide (525-13 with 58% of the vote.  Mondale just barely wins his home state of Michigan by a quarter of a percentage point).

I'm not saying that there might not be a contest - and history is no guarantee of the future, but even if it takes a while for the economy to turn around, it may not hurt Obama as much as some seem to think.  

Still, a rigid ideologue like Palin might fit into the same mold as Goldwater or Mondale, and be prone to the same fate in difficult times.

[pragmatic liberal]

I thought people here studied history.

Many of the biggest reelection landslides in history came during troubled economic times.  

1936 - Great depression.  FDR wins reelection in a landslide (523-8 with 60% of the vote)
1964 - Stagflation. Johnson wins reelection in a landslide (486-52 with 61% of the vote)
1984 - Major recession.  Unemployment over 7%.  Reagan wins in a landslide (525-13 with 58% of the vote.  Mondale just barely wins his home state of Michigan by a quarter of a percentage point).

I'm not saying that there might not be a contest - and history is no guarantee of the future, but even if it takes a while for the economy to turn around, it may not hurt Obama as much as some seem to think.  

Still, a rigid ideologue like Palin might fit into the same mold as Goldwater or Mondale, and be prone to the same fate in difficult times.

Stagflation was a '70s phenomenon. Actually, economic growth and income growth in the '60s was very robust. In 1964, the economy was doing very well.

[justfollowingtheelections]

I thought people here studied history.

Many of the biggest reelection landslides in history came during troubled economic times.  

1936 - Great depression.  FDR wins reelection in a landslide (523-8 with 60% of the vote)
1964 - Stagflation. Johnson wins reelection in a landslide (486-52 with 61% of the vote)
1984 - Major recession.  Unemployment over 7%.  Reagan wins in a landslide (525-13 with 58% of the vote.  Mondale just barely wins his home state of Michigan by a quarter of a percentage point).

I'm not saying that there might not be a contest - and history is no guarantee of the future, but even if it takes a while for the economy to turn around, it may not hurt Obama as much as some seem to think.  

Still, a rigid ideologue like Palin might fit into the same mold as Goldwater or Mondale, and be prone to the same fate in difficult times.

No I have studied and teach Economics, not history.  And as the pragmatic liberal said, stagflation began to show its ugly face in 1969 or so.  In the early/mid 60s the world economy was doing so well that many prominent economists thought we would never again see a recession.

[anvi]

I agree with you that Republicans would have to change some of their policy
platforms to win over the Hispanic demographic.  I don't believe at all that
Hispanic voters will gravitate to a candidate just because he or she is of their
background. But there are two things here that are important.  No party that
is out of power for some time can be brought back until they revitalize themselves,
and one of the key ingredients in revitalization is a revision of the platform.  Winning
candidates are those who tend to stand up to their own party and correct their
mistakes.  If the Republican party will only nominate or give enthusiastic support
and turn out for candidates who will get a 100% stamp of approval from their base,
then they will lose every election, just as Democrats would if they did  the same.  
Indeed, I thought the Republican party was quite smart to nominate McCain this
year, because only a more moderate Republican who could appeal to the increasingly
alienated middle was going to have a shot.  The fact that McCain got 46% of the
popular vote in that shadow of a president of his own party whose approval rating
after two terms was below 30% vindicates McCain's selection.  Obama still had to outspend
him 3-1 to win!  The problem was that, once he was nominated, the conservative base
never let McCain shoot  for the middle, they had to be assured every step of the way
that McCain was going to bow to their agenda on every issue, and this was a disaster.  
Who is most angry at Obama these days?  The far left!  No wonder he won.  If a party's
base holds every candidate hostage and does not allow them to go to the middle in a
campaign, they are going to find themselves on the outside looking in every time.  
There is an apt description for political parties that don't self-correct and adapt; dead.  
Secondly, in 2012, the Republican party has to look for places that it can regain
100 electoral votes, at least seven states, and so they had better be prepared to
appeal to a very broad cross-section of voters, and they can't do that by repeating
the same policies, and this is, I think, one reason that Pailin on the top of a '12 ticket
won't fly.  So, to respond to you more directly, yes, I think you are absolutely right
that an appeal to Hispanic votes is going to require some major policy shifts from
the Republican party, on immigration and other issues too.  If the base can't get
on board with that, then Republican candidates can either keep losing or the
Republican party can split in two and both sides can lose in national races.  The
country is changing, and in order to be successful, political parties will have to
change with it.  That, to my mind, is good news.

[justfollowingtheelections]

I totally agree with you.  Picking McCain was the right thing to do, which is why I think it's ridiculous that many conservatives think they lost the elections because McCain was too moderate and that picking someone who religion-based values in 2012 who will unite the base (as if that is what they need right now) will be the path to victory.

[RosettaStoned]

Hello landslide.

[pbrower2a]

Palin unites the anti-intellectual, Christian fundamentalist base and offends the rest. Poor choice.

Obama landslide, 2012, unless his administration is an unqualified disaster.

[DS0816]

… Mondale just barely wins his home state of Michigan by a quarter of a percentage point). …

I'm sure it was a slip-up for you, but it's Minnesota, not Michigan. Walter Mondale, the Democratic ex-vice president and 1984 presidential contender, hailed from Minnesota.

[opebo]

Honestly, is it even possible to have a surplus anytime in the next decade?

Sure, if we just print the money instead of 'borrowing' it.

[Ebowed]

[TomC]

yep, this is the map.

[Phony Moderate]

Palin narrowly holds Texas and South Carolina.

[chinaglenn]

Palin is not going to be the nominee in 2012 or any other time. She one of the reasons that Republicans blame the 2008 loss on which in reality was a near landslide. When the ship was obviously going down on the McCain campaign, she started to do her own thing, as in possibly setting herself up in 2012.

Has there been any losing Vice Presidential candidate to ever win the Presidency? There was FDR, but he did it 12 years after losing the Vice Presidency. Bob Dole had to wait 20 years for his Presidential nomination after losing the V.P. in 1976. It is a very difficult process, and being 0-1 in Presidential elections running for the junior position does not bode well for the same person seeking the senior positon.

Palin is still having political problems in Alaska. This person will never be anything more than what she is, a one term governor of a politically obscure state who had her 15 minutes of fame with Johnny McCain. Her political problems will do her in in Alaska, and she would be a laughable as Dan Quayle if she tried to run.

I know a few of us have a hard on for the woman, and I do too. But she is a Church Lady Harpie with a 48 I.Q. (the Brick Tammland of politics) with five children, (the names of the children denotes that the parents are mentally retarded) and a husband named TODD with a goatee. I never met a TODD I liked or respected and rings of hair around the mouth of weird and unsexy. He has his oar in the sh(tstorm that is Alaska politics.

The nominee is going to be Romney or someone that no one has really heard of. Jindal will never be elected President because he is from a foreign, dirty, Third World country. No, not India. Louisiana!