Outlook for Obama
2011-08-05 - by
Public Policy Polling is bullish on President Obama’s reelection prospects. I’m not.
Tom Jensen at PPP wrote this week:
“A broad theme has been emerging in our state by state Presidential polling over the last couple months: if the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney it’s a tossup. And if they nominate anyone else it’s 2008 all over again.”
Here’s why I’m pessimistic. Four of the last nine presidential elections coincided with an economic slump. In each case, the incumbent or incumbent party lost: Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, Bush in 1992 and Republicans in 2008.
The 2012 election likely will play out in a worse economic slump that any of those four years. How can an incumbent President win reelection against those headwinds?
There’s only one answer: He has to run against a villain, and he has to make that villain an unacceptable risk to the American people.
Outlook for Obama
2011-08-05/
Public Policy Polling is bullish on President Obama’s reelection prospects. I’m not.
Tom Jensen at PPP wrote this week:
“A broad theme has been emerging in our state by state Presidential polling over the last couple months: if the Republicans nominate Mitt Romney it’s a tossup. And if they nominate anyone else it’s 2008 all over again.”
Here’s why I’m pessimistic. Four of the last nine presidential elections coincided with an economic slump. In each case, the incumbent or incumbent party lost: Ford in 1976, Carter in 1980, Bush in 1992 and Republicans in 2008.
The 2012 election likely will play out in a worse economic slump that any of those four years. How can an incumbent President win reelection against those headwinds?
There’s only one answer: He has to run against a villain, and he has to make that villain an unacceptable risk to the American people.