Friday, December 31, 2010

Progostications for 2012

It is the best of times

It is the worst of times

It is Obama time

Which will it be in 2012?

If the election were held today, the Republicans would win in a landslide. However, two years is an eternity in politics. Hence predictions in 2010 as to the 2012 elections will lack the certitude of Nostradamus.

President Obama will face a primary opponent, if he seeks reelection, most likely Senator Feingold, Governor Howard Dean, Secretary of State Clinton, or someone nobody thought of.

If the economy is the same in two years as today, President Obama cannot get reelected. The economy should be in better shape then. If not, we will all be in trouble.

If inflation, and high interest rates are unleashed, as with President Carter, President Obama will be well advised to retire gracefully.

President Obama may pull an LBJ and decide not to run for reelection.

If she seeks the republican nomination, Governor Palin will win. She connects with the public just as President Reagan. Governor Brown and President Carter both wanted Ronald Reagan as their opponent. They did not understand his ability to connect with Americans. Governor Palin has the same touch.

The Tea Party will be even stronger in 2012.

President Obama may get reelected, but the odds and the electoral college are against it.

He will once again carry the overwhelming African-American vote, as well as a substantial majority of the growing Hispanic vote, but the South will become The Solid South for the Republican nominee.

The youth vote will drop to normal percentages.

The left will hold its nose, and vote for the President, if they vote.

President Obama carried 28 states and the District of Columbia in 2008 for 365 electoral votes. Senator McCain carried 22 states with 173 votes. As a result of reapportionment, McCain’s numbers would have risen to 179 and Obama’s dropped to 359.
However, the only state carried by McCain, which could turn Democratic, is the swing state of Missouri with 10 votes. Conversely, the President risks losing Florida with 29, Indiana (10), North Carolina (16), Ohio (18) and Virginia (13). If he loses these five states, his reelection will be almost impossible. If Michigan votes Republican, the President loses.

The President is toying with the idea of once again running as an outsider. Let him; the rout will be on.

The President’s campaign staff, presumably David Axelrod in Chicago will convince him that’s a bad idea.

President Obama will discover, as many predecessors, the use of foreign policy as an escape from domestic problems, and a hostile Congress. Expect much more traveling from the President, to foreign countries, Hawaii and golf courses.

This effort will fail if he continues the policies of appeasement and apologies that marked his first two years.

President Obama was never good with the minutia of drafting legislation anyway.

If Americans continue to tune out President Obama, his oratorical skills will fall on deaf eyes and also doom reelection.

President Obama believes that the American opposition to his health care act, as well as the midterm elections, were the result of being unable to convey his message, that is, a failure to communicate. He gave scores of speeches on health care, with support steadily dropping.

Keep on speechifying!

Much of his message was to unsuccessfully demonize opponents, the Chamber of Commerce, big banks, insurance companies, doctors, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Fox News, Congressman John Boehner, and Senator Mitch McConnell.

Unless he learns to run a positive campaign, he will lose.

President Obama should replace several of his weaker cabinet members, but resists doing so either out of loyalty or his inability to admit a mistake. The President, in his own mind, is incapable of making a mistake.

Vice President Biden will utter a gaffe that even the media cannot ignore.

Several cabinet secretaries will spend most of their time testifying before the House.

A government shutdown will be threatened, but unlike Speaker Newt Gingrich’s 1995 government shutdown, but this time the onus will fall on the President.

Even with the power of the incumbency, the President and the Democrats will raise less money than the Republicans.

The Republicans will learn to master the new media.

Many newspapers will switch their endorsements to the Republicans.

Republicans will hold the House and regain control of the Senate.
Many senior, incumbent Democratic Congressmen and Senators will not stand for reelection. They cannot handle the loss of power, reduced fundraising, reapportionment, the coattails of an unpopular President, and the cutoff of earmarks.

The health care reform act will be emasculated, and then effectively repealed.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will become even more of an embarrassment to everyone except himself.

Former Speaker Pelosi will tire of flying commercial.

The Democrats will continue to overreach financially in California, but the state will remain blue.

Labor's political power will shrink from 2008 or 2010 levels..

George W. Bush’s reputation will continue to rise.

It's still the economy, stupid.

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