Hot Air comments:
Barring a catastrophic first term, The One will be heavily favored for reelection, leading young’uns like Jindal and Palin to bow out and bide their time until 2016.... Mitt might run since he’d be 69 and facing a crowded, charismatic field in 2016, but unless he stands a real chance to win, I figure he’ll pass too in the interest of avoiding further expense and aggravation. Result: A Huckabee-Pawlenty snoozefest....I think it's impossible to make much of a prediction this far out, but I certainly hope Obama does well. Not too well. Unlike many people who voted for Obama, I dislike change.
(Ugh. Just added the "2012 campaign" tag. Made a mental note to use it sparingly this year.)
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41 comments:
Mush!
Burble!
2012? Great its Jan 2.
I didn't vote for the guy, but I hope he's the greatest president ever. Not betting that way.
I agree. Palin and Jindal bow out.
Frontrunner, 2012.
And definately tops for blog traffic, 2009.
Frontrunner for 2012 barring any reason to think that Obama's first term will be a success. He built expectations so high - that absurd Babylon 5 speech, for example (his nomination "was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal, ... the moment when we ended a war, and secured our nation, and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth") - that he's got to knock it out of the park to look anything but mediocre.
I am optimistic that the American people will extract themselves from the dark, cold, valley we're about to be plunged into. And the comparison of Barack Gondorff and Joe Hooker with Sarah Palin - who's the real deal - does not flatter our President elect.
And folks, lets not forget this:
Obama has one overwhelming advantage: Chris Matthews' electic leg.
Is that assuming every republican with an IQ above nitwit bows out early?
Is there something about a mindless Ya'betcha that qualifies someone? Is foolishness and the inability to answer even simple questions with any coherence "good enough" to lead the pack...?
Is Sarah really GWB
s long lost idiot sister snatched at birth by gypsies and sold to wolves to raise on Sgt. Preston of the Yukon reruns?
Ya'betcha!
Simon said "with Sarah Palin - who's the real deal".....
Simon:
I could wile away the hours
Conferrin' with the flowers
Consultin' with the rain
And my head I'd be scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain
I'd unravel any riddle
For any individ'le
In trouble or in pain
(Dorothy)
With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain
(Simon again)
Oh, I would tell you why
The ocean's near the shore
I could think of things I never thunk before
And then I'd sit and think some more
I would not be just a nuffin'
My head all full of stuffin'
My heart all full of pain
I would dance and be merry
Life would be a ding-a-derry
If I only had a brain
I heard so much from Obama allready... I'm ready to move on ;)
Here's hoping Obama knocks it out of the park.
Well, hey, if Obama is so great as to be unchallengeable in 2012, we'll get eight years of the weird combination of terror and idiocy demonstrated by hdhouse here.
Result: A Huckabee-Pawlenty snoozefest....
Must be a typo.
Result: A Huckabee-Pawlenty pukefest....
Fixed.
But then, I don't buy the Hot Air analysis. Of course, that could just be my optimism kicking in.
4 years out. In 2004, the oddsmakers were saying that Jeb Bush could replace Dubya and that if Hillary wasn't the nominee, then the Dems had their telegenic Silky Pony with all his charisma and huge crowds loving his speeches and talking points.
I can buy pollsters seeing the Fundi Goddess as the "new" John Edwards....
A lot can change in 4 years.
Right now, the Republicans don't even know the fixes they want - after the discrediting of much of Reaganomics and a 2-year debacle over mismanagement, corruption, reckless spending and endless lists of wars the now (hopefully) almost all gone Neocons wanted/
What happened to the Republicans is as bad as the Goldwater debacle and the McGovernite fiasco. And rebuilding has to happen.
(And contrary to popular belief, the Republicans rebuilt and were nationally competitive again not from reactionary conservatives to the right of Goldwater, but centrist to slightly right Republicans led by people like Nixon and Dirksen, by 1968.)
The Republicans, post-1964, were smart enough not to want to become a permanent, ideologically pure minority Party confined to a few Southern states Goldwater carried.
Frankly though, the best the nation can hope for is Obama does well enough fixing the catastrophes he inherited that like Eisenhower in 1956, Nixon in 1972, Reagan in 1984, and Clinton in 1996 he has no difficulty being reelected.
Once the Republican race starts, in 4 years, we will see who were media creations like Edwards...and which actually have substance. Because of McCain's whims, Palin will be given more status than she would have if McCain hadn't had the impulsive drive to nominate his good friend Lieberman then back off and throw Palin up as a peace offering to the Fundies once they had caught a sniff of "Good 'Ol Joe" in the wings...
But on top of Romney, Pawlenty, you also have Charlie Crist, Haley Barbour, Sue Collins...
But nothing would be better for most Americans than a successful (and lucky) Obama with America's great catastrophes being fixed - standing for reelection on a fine record. Let's hope Obama succeeds, because the price of his failure will be dearly felt, down at the family level.
The GOP bench is pretty thin.
The party needs to learn that shouting slogans loudly does not create sound policy.
The GOP could be in the wilderness for a long time (and McConnell and Boehner are duds, which doesn't help).
Somehow it strikes me that this is something that obtains in some ways, however various and varied.
Following Obamas' audacious approach to campaign finance, Sarah Palin will begin her 2012 campaign by hosting an Internet game show/political commentary program You Betcha Life!, sort of a cross between C-SPAN and Deal or No Deal. Contestants vote on issues of the day, and collect fabulous prizes!
Sarah can have InstaPolls of relevant issues, with plenty o' top spin for the pundits to interpret from her, and give away all sorts of things! Perhaps a cartoonish duck (representing the Federal Government) will appear if someone mentions the 'secret meme.' She will be ably assisted by the blogospheres equivalent of George Fenneman, Bob Wright from Bloggingheads...
As for the rest, it's not 2012 that'll be so interesting--speaking for myself only, of course--but, rather, 2011, if not (and more likely) earlier. Or maybe I am the only one who, after all of that and all of this, thinks it's the primary, people--not to mention the pre-primary, whether I'd prefer so or not.
[Really, do we think that precedent-ial clock is going to be turned back all. the. way. to earlier times?!? Wouldn't want to bet on it, myself.]
So irritating. It appears (no doubt my bad) that there's no way to link to the current audio track to which I'm listening. It's a combination of the obscure (lol) and artists' stance, I'd bet. Anyway, whatever, and here's what it is: Adrian Belew's "Things You Hit with a stick."
Nix on "Nude Wrestling with a Christmas Tree" as well. Figures.
"(Ugh. Just added the "2012 campaign" tag. Made a mental note to use it sparingly this year.)"
Ha, I've got you've beat, I've had an "Election 2016" tag since February 2007.
My prediction is that Obama will find this new job over his pay grade, and will resign after about 2 years. He will then retire to the place where he was born. After every speech, President Biden will get this response: "I can't believe he just said that." Althouse will have plenty of emotional Althouse tags for 2 years, then we'll see a lot of lame tags.
AllenS: Perhaps you missed that Althouse now has a I was wrong tag, but so far only one post.
Don't know about Palin, but there's an excellent chance the next four years will be catastrophic. So far Bush has done everything wrong, and O'bama proposes to go further ... wrong.
Or, I could be wrong. Hope so. I'd like to retire some day.
I don't buy the Hot Air analysis. Of course, that could just be my optimism kicking in.
Freeman, I hope you're right, but I am getting pretty skeptical. It wasn't Reagan's social conservatism that made him popular, it was his libertarianism. No republican politician seems to have picked up on that since. And I don't see any signs that they are going to.
We really could be stuck with "compassionate conservatism" for a long time. Talk about pukefest.
Helen, love your avatar.
Thanks, Knox.
Sarah!
Just like Hillary!
Why would you hope Obama does not do "too well"?
I would hope that any American President would be successful beyond reason, so long as I am the judge of what constitutes a success.
"Well, hey, if Obama is so great as to be unchallengeable in 2012, we'll get eight years of the weird combination of terror and idiocy demonstrated by hdhouse here."
We are going to get that regardless, barring some sort of health issue.
"It wasn't Reagan's social conservatism that made him popular, it was his libertarianism."
You are wrong.
It was the way he managed to make himself and his administration attractive to social conservatives, libertarians, and pro-business Republicans.
Since then, each faction has decided they want it all rather than sharing the agenda with the other factions, and as result the coalition died.
I wonder who will be the first to call our new President an Oreo? Someone will say something to the effect of they voted for a black man and got Clinton III.
Any predictions?
Trey
Never underestimate Mitt Romney. The last person who did that was Fred Thompson, and look what Mitt did to his face.
Before the Democrats completely go overboard counting their chickens, they should be aware that most economics of the last 30 or 40 years has taught that the Keynsian multiplier is less than 1, and that federal spending is a negative sum game. A trillion here and a trillion there, and pretty soon you are talking real money (and a recession that may turn into a depression).
After spending the bulk of a trillion on bailing out the banks and car companies, the Democrats are talking about spending another trillion on stimulus. That is without considering the trillion that the states are asking for.
If the proposed stimulus packages primarily involved massive tax cuts, then maybe, just maybe, they might compensate for the most of a trillion already blown. But they don't, and instead mostly seem to involve massive federal spending on whatever pet project and interest group can make any plausible case that they should get some of the gravy.
Where is all of this money going to come from? Tax increases? Sorry, doesn't work that way. Tax increases at the level of taxation we see invariably harm the economy more than the spending they support can help. Borrowing? From whom?
At some point, this edifice of cards is going to crash. The economics of wishful thinking only works for a short time. And then, Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress are going to have to face the music.
Which brings me back to the original question about 2012. If, as I suspect, the economy has still not recovered to where it was when Obama got the nomination, next time around, my guess is that this may be more like when Bill Clinton ran the first time - a vulnerable president faced by a 2nd tier candidate because all the 1st tier candidates are waiting to 2016 (or 1996 in WJC's case).
Any predictions?
Few. I have a bet with elcubanitoKC, who doesn't seem to post here anymore, that I will say he's right if people who oppose a bill supported by Obama are tagged racist. He has to say I'm right if it doesn't happen. I think he'll be saying I'm right a lot more often.
I've seen nothing to suggest that anti-Obama politicians are called anything other than anti-Obama politicians (that is, they're not called racists). So I don't know why Obama would be called an oreo.
EnigmatiCore said...
"Why would you hope Obama does not do 'too well'? I would hope that any American President would be successful beyond reason, so long as I am the judge of what constitutes a success."
Talk about circular reasoning! Why would your idea of what counts as success be the yardstick? I hope Obama fails if the yardstick is his own agenda; I hope he succeeds if the yardstick is my agenda; but we're really starting to get into postmodern territory when we're relying on arbitrarily changing the viewpoint assumed by common usage of terms like "success."
You are wrong.
no YOU are!
"Barring a catastrophic first term"
Last time anyone had an economic crisis like this, it was Japan in the 1990s. It lasted well more than four years, and that was despite the fact that the rest of the world didn't join in.
Barring a genuine miracle, Obama's first term will be catastrophic. The question will be if Obama, like FDR, can convince the American people that he's a good choice to captain the ship of state during a disaster.
I agree with AllanS on this one.
1) Obama said that abortion was above his paygrade at the Saddleback Forum
2) he did not go to the G20 summit, which I believe he should have, since he will be dealing with them this year
3)He went golfing and had his lackey talk about Gaza.
Now if he is like that now, how will he suddenly become this great FDR/Lincoln/Washington-like leader?
I'm not wishing ill, I just don't see him as a leader.
As far as Palin goes, I think she is the Obama of the Republicans, in terms of scary devoted fanbases. She's got the executive experience but has been typecasted (for right or wrong) as not knowing what she is talking about. But she has a chance *if* Obama's politcal star burns out badly.
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