Why Obama Will Win

One thing I’ve learned along my way in life is that people have a very poor mental capacity to recall history accurately at all, and in fact have very short memories.  In politics this is especially true.  On my path to a degree in Political Science I heard from many different sources a statement that is almost always true, “A President is never more popular than the first day they take office”.  With a new President breeds new hope.

In 2010 Republicans would have you to believe that gaining the seats they did in Congress was some giant event in history showcasing the true voice of the American people demanding real change.  It wasn’t.  History shows nearly every mid-term election the party that holds the White House loses seats.  In 1994 Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 50 years and you know what happened in 1996?  Clinton put a beat down on Bob Dole.  What Republicans did then is a lot of what they are doing now.  That is they spent Clinton’s first term doing all they could to try to get him removed from the White House.

In fact if you factor out Ross Perot Dole had a near 50/50 split with Clinton among the popular vote.  This, the same Bill Clinton who championed a balanced budget, a budget surplus, historically low levels of unemployment and economic growth in his 2nd term.  Even the President responsible for record economic prosperity at the time of his re-election won so decisively mainly because he had a lot of help from Ross Perot who took around 8 million total votes (assume 6 of those go to Dole, Clinton only wins the popular vote by 4 million votes much closer than the 9 million by which he actually won).

Fast forward to today.  We face much different economic times in 2011, heading into 2012, than we did in 1995 and 1996.  Obama came in on a wave of hope that no President could live up to.  I said back after he was elected his biggest obstacle won’t be Republicans or the mess made from 2 terms of near criminal neglect of our country, but from the unrealistic hope people had in him to wave a magic wand and fix everything.  I knew from day one Republicans would spend the next few years doing anything they could to sabotage the country in hopes to stagnate the economy as much as possible in hopes to reclaim the White House in 2012.

And that’s exactly what they’ve done.  Essentially, “if Obama supports it, we won’t”.  They suddenly became champions of deficit reduction when you never heard that term mentioned once until 2008.  Why you ask?  Well, what else could they do?  If they help Obama and Democrats they get the credit for turning the country around and it exposes even further the myth of almost all the Republican core ideologies such as low taxes are vital for job creation and trickle down economics.

They had one “go to” solution…deficits.  They were big and going to get bigger.  They knew this, but they also knew that deficits scare people.  Saying things like “China owns our country” gets the blood boiling.  They also know that the only way to reduce deficits is through massive spending cuts, which would hurt economic growth, thus hurt Obama.  We’ve had, I believe, 21-22 months of positive private sector job growth.  In fact the only reason we don’t have 21-22 months of overall gross job growth is due to the loss in job at the public level, which comes from these deficit reducing budget cuts (Republican led budget cuts–I think in the neighborhood of 500,000 government jobs cut since 2009).

But it’s what they had to do.  Imagine if unemployment was around 6.5-7% would they stand a chance at ousting Obama in 2012?  Hell they wouldn’t even have the House right now.  But in their desperation they created this new PR image in the Tea Party.  Essentially a,”Hey we’re Republicans but this time we mean it!” approach.  Only it hasn’t gone as planned.  Sure it got them a full head of steam into 2010, but look at the GOP candidates it’s produced.

So far you’ve had frontrunners of Bachman, Cain, Perry, Romney and now Gingrich.  Really?  The only electable candidate in the whole mess is Romney, and that’s the only reason why he’s even a top 2 candidate.  In reality the Tea Party, Christian fundamentalist and core Republicans really don’t want to vote for him.  So think about that for a moment, the eventual likely winner of this GOP circus is Romney, a guy who’ll simply win not because of his ideas or qualifications, but because he’s the only candidate that seems to stand a chance to beat Obama.

Now think of that and go watch his interview with Fox News (be sure to check out Part 2 as well).  If he can’t handle an interview with the mouthpiece of the Republican party, how in the world is he going to handle a face to face debate with Obama?

Now, if you look at polling numbers they baffle me.  Congress is at historic levels of disapproval, which most Americans blame Republicans.  The Tea Party has fallen more or less to the level of popularity of BP Oil and the same polls show that Americans believe Democrats are better to handle the economy than Republicans.  However, when asked who they would vote for between Obama and most the GOP candidates his lead is single digits (usually 2-5%).  Makes absolutely no sense.  People blame Republicans more than Democrats, don’t like the Tea Party and trust Democrats more, yet (as it stands) are split on Obama or the peanut gallery.

This doesn’t worry me at all.  Why?  Because, right now you have crazy compared to crazy.  Take a group of clowns at a circus and they fit in and appear normal.  However take one clown out of the circus into the real world and it’s just a weirdo walking around in messed up face paint and big red shoes.

These candidates have flip-flopped back and forth as to who is the front runner and who’s a joke simply because they’re all awful  Currently though voters have a “grass is greener” approach.  Obama and Democrats really haven’t gone after any of these people.  They’ve handled some decent attacks from one another (especially the new front runner Gingrich) but at the end of the day they still carry basically the same message, and a group hatred of Obama.  They’re on display, they’re getting the free press, they’re campaigning, Obama really isn’t.  In the midst of some of the worst economic times, with a group of people on TV weekly bashing anything and everything he stands for, being promoted as the “next big hope”, facts show in almost every poll (including Fox News) Obama still leads.

Imagine your favorite sports team narrowly ahead in a game heading into the second half, and at halftime they come out and say, “well, we weren’t even trying to win in the first half, now we’re going to put it away”.  That’s essentially what this is.

Right now the crazy seems moderate.  Because the each crazy is surrounded by other crazies.  Romney seems “Presidential” because he’s standing next to a bunch of people who have no business even being considered for the office.  Gingrich seems like a great candidate because, at the end of the day, right or wrong he says what’s on his mind, sticks to it and doesn’t pander to the crowd (at least not as much as the rest).

But when the dust settles one of these people is going to be on stage with President Obama.  Now, I don’t care what your views are about Obama, he’s one thing, a near flawless speaker.  And he’s already ahead without even stepping foot on stage to combat one of these candidates.

With an unopposed position, and a grand stage to bash the President on national television for free, Obama STILL leads every single one of these candidates.

I predict that gap will widen even further once you take one of the crazies, remove them from the other circus performers where their ridiculousness will really stand out, then put it on display next to a very well spoken, calm, cool and direct President Obama.  Once a GOP leader is clearly established Obama can then utilize his mound of campaign cash and focus it on one sole opposition candidate.  I’m predicting a repeat of the 1996 election’s.

Right now the grass seems greener on the other side, because no one knows yet what the other side is.  Obama has been disappointing on some levels, but a lot of those levels came with unrealistic expectations.  No President is perfect, and no matter what Democrat won in 2008 they were facing a very steep uphill battle. However, even with all of that what’s the alternative?

Romney?  The candidate Republicans really don’t want, yet may only vote in because he’s holds the best electability.  Gingrich?  The twice divorced guy who’s been a career politicians, questionable ties to Fannie and Freddie Mac, and wants to remove child labor laws so kids can work to clean up schools and stop paying janitors?  Perry?  HA! Please, that’s too easy.  Bachman?  See response to Perry.  Paul?  Yes, lets see a candidate say on a national stage against Obama that a nuclear armed Iran isn’t a big deal and we don’t need to support Israel.

So who really is going to beat him?  He isn’t even trying to win right now and he already leads.  They’ve been trying to get Obama out of office for three years and with every resource they’ve had, holding a chamber of Congress hostage, billionaire backers like the Koch brothers, and weeks upon weeks of GOP primary candidate bashing, at the end of the day Obama still leads every one of them in nearly every single poll.

Just wait till the second half starts when he actually starts trying to win.