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Are you that embarrased by Fox News to not put the link to the article there?
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/...ge-on-numbers/
Presidential reelection campaigns are always about the in bent – serving as a referendum of that President’s performance in office and the results of their policies. It's a choice election. It's not about the challenger. What the in bent tries to do is to make the other "choice" unacceptable, resulting in the in bent’s reelection.
Recent history bears this out.
In 1980 Jimmy Carter ran against an electable, acceptable, sunny candidate in Ronald Reagan at a time when inflation and unemployment were soaring. He lost.
In 1984 Ronald Reagan made Walter Mondale into an unacceptable liberal and Americans were willing to stick with Reagan, with his coalition of "Reagan Democrats" standing by him. He won 49 states.
The 1992 and 1996 elections have an asterisk – a third party candidate (Ross Perot) siphoned reliable votes away first from the Republican president (George H.W. Bush) and then the Republican Party nominee (Bob Dole), helping Bill Clinton win two terms without ever winning a majority of the vote.
However, in 1992 President George H.W. Bush lost his base by breaking his famous “no new taxes” pledge. That, coupled with high unemployment soured the country on him and made it possible for a genial, baby boom generation, comeback kid to win the White House.
Four years later, Clinton triangulated and moved to the middle, working with the Republican Congress and swamping an unimaginative Dole-Kemp campaign at a time when the public believed that country was headed in the right direction. Clinton was the first Democratic president to win reelection in 40 years.
The 2004 election is a classic example of the in bent realizing his weaknesses and making his challenger unacceptable. Through the "Swift Boat' ads against Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, video of the candidate's repeated flip-flops and even an unfortunate photo of Kerry wind surfing, President George W. Bush overcame a tough reelection climate to eke out a 60,000 margin of victory in Ohio, earning him the second term that eluded his father.
These examples tell us many instructive things about 2012.
In bents are either strong or weak going into their reelections and they always attempt to define their opponents in ways that make them unelectable.
But I suspect the 2012 campaign will be waged on only two issues: the economy and a referendum on ObamaCare.
Consider that, as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has already predicted, the Supreme Court will likely announce their decision on the cons utionality of Obama’s sweeping health care law on the last Monday in June next year. Such a time frame will likely be after the GOP nominee has been chosen but before the national party conventions, during the summer when the presidential general election campaign is not yet being waged ferociously.
No matter what decision is rendered, ObamaCare is guaranteed to burn white hot as an issue on the campaign trail in 2012.
Only after the 2012 election, if Barack Obama does win a second term as president, we will we know for sure if he was successful tactically.
However, his ultimate success or failure can be foretold by four discrete statistics – and the first two directly impact the second two.
By Labor Day of 2012, President Obama will have to play the cards he has dealt on the national unemployment rate and on the price of a gallon of gas.
Both subjects present tangible, simple numbers that have a direct impact on Americans personally and psychologically. Labor Day is the timeframe when, after summer vacations are over and children return to school, parents (likely voters) begin paying greater attention to the candidates. That's when opinions firm up, information takes hold, and impressions become difficult to change.
If, as is not just possible, but even likely, President Obama is dealt a hand that has unemployment over 8 percent and the price of gasoline at $3 a gallon, Americans are likely to view their own economic future pessimistically and give the other candidate, if acceptable to the broad middle, a chance to run the country.
No in bent president since FDR has won reelection with unemployment over 7.2 percent and today unemployment is 9.2 percent, as today’s dismal jobs report indicated. Gas prices were $1.68when Obama took over, and today the national average is $3.59, more than double.
While some statistics lie, these don’t.
Those two statistics will directly impact the so-called "Right Track, Wrong Track" number, which indicates what Americans believe about the direction the country is headed. Economic opportunity is political destiny. If unemployment and gas prices are high, the wrong track number will be the majority view, as it is today. A recent poll released by the non-profit Let Freedom Ring, for whom, in full disclosure, I have consulted, pegged the wrong track number at 60 percent in a 1,000 personal national survey in mid-June.
Add up gas prices, national unemployment, and the wrong track number and blend them together – you will get the reelect number. If an in bent, whether running for State Representative, Congress or President is under 50 percent for reelection, the overwhelming majority of the time they lose.
In bents don’t win undecided voters at the end because the voters already know them and have made up their mind. A known candidate they don’t yet support is less appealing than an unknown candidate they just might like better.
As former Texas Senator Phil Gramm once said, “The only vote you can count on is when they say, ‘I will not vote for you.’” Negativity drives voter action and when in bents are polling below 50 percent in their reelection, there’s a lot of negativity about them.
Currently, President Obama is an even shot for reelection. At this point, it could go either way.
But I suspect we will know by Labor Day 2012 where this is headed. While some politicians might lie, the numbers and history, don’t.
Are you that embarrased by Fox News to not put the link to the article there?
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/...ge-on-numbers/
In fairness to ducks, bb, he's ducks.
I was trying to see what people would think
if it was posted and the link said foxnews some here would not read it
and then some would not read it if it was from cnn
How much control does the President have on gas prices?
I didn't read it because it said Thread Starter: ducks.
that's a false question. It's not that the president manipulates gas prices, but that his policies have an effect.
Which policies does Obama have to make gas prices rise?
Gas was $4 a gallon in june of 2008.
I really don't understand why dems are so confident. Sure the reps have a pathetically horrible showcase for nominations, but Obama sucks as being President so...
^^^ lol avatar
uh? How do you connect potential domestic drilling with any variation in gas prices?
I would say a more direct policy that directly affect gas prices is the release or not of strategic petroleum reserve.
Well if I'm not mistaken he did dip in the reserve, but I honestly have no idea why. I thought he wanted us to think about that trade in <shrugs>
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/06/09/...f-exploration/President Obama’s decision to allow some deepwater drilling to resume in the Gulf of Mexico is already yielding impressive results. ExxonMobil announced yesterday it had discovered what amounts to 700 million barrels of oil in the Gulf — the largest find in 12 years.
The discovery comes about two months after ExxonMobil had resumed drilling under new regulations put in place by the Obama administration. The company had drilled two wells at the site prior to last year’s oil spill, but was forced to cease work when the government imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling. This new third well is 7,000 feet below water.
“This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the last decade,” said Steve Greenlee, president of ExxonMobil Exploration Co.
The House Natural Resources Committee estimated the discovery would translate to 14 billion gallons of gas and more than two months of current U.S oil production.
After nearly of a year of drilling delays — first with a government-imposed moratorium and then a months-long “permitorium” — the administration has only recently begun to issue permits for deepwater wells. However, the pace still lags significantly behind the historical average, causing economic harm to the region. (Watch our videos featuring business owners Leslie Bertucci of R&D Enterprises, Randall Stilley of Seahawk Drilling, and Thomas Clements of CNC Machining and Todd Hornbeck of Hornbeck Offshore.)
New data from Greater New Orleans Inc. last week indicated that deepwater permit issuance from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement is down 88 percent from the previous year’s average. The agency is approving only 0.7 deepwater permits per month.
Even shallow-water permits are down 15 percent from the historical average of 7.1 per month. The administration is currently approving six shallow-water permits per month.
Given the news of ExxonMobil’s discovery, one can only wonder how much oil production was sacrificed as a result of the moratorium and the Obama administration’s subsequent delays.
“Let’s remember that this successful project was approved and moving into location at the time the moratorium was put into place, and sat idle from 2010 through March 2011,” House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa said in response to the news. “Lost time is lost opportunity and the economic price has been paid by workers in the Gulf region and consumers at the gas pump.”
The U.S. House recently passed a trio of bills that would increase energy production that now await action in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
700 million barrels? That's 35 days of US consumption.
You're looking at multi-billion-barrel deposits to make a dent on prices.
You find one of these a year, and it relieves our imports by about 10%.
Did you read what he posted? 'largest find in 12 years'?
There just isn't enough oil out there to make a dent. Not to mention that actually starting to pump oil from those places will take years. Obama will probably be gone by then.
BTW, the US already have incredibly low oil prices... if anything, prices are just catching up to the rest of the world (that's not an oil producer like Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, etc).
Obama will get reelected no matter what. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a tad bit dumbass.
"You find one of these a year, and it relieves our imports by about 10%."
Spend the oil exploration $Bs on green stimulus to convert heavy polluting office buildings to energy conservation and CO2 suppression and get much more bang for the buck.
Spend some $Bs on nano-tech and other battery storage for electric cars, since oil is 70% spent on transport. Conservation is much cheaper than more exploration, and the $$ all stay in the US.
Running down the same damn oil/gas road is ing stupid because it's unsustainable, leading to dead end that the oil/gas co's are dreamin and droolin about because of their inevitable $Ts in windfall profits.
I pity defeatists like you. Why can't you be optimistic?
I believe he will only because of the rich elitists he bailed out to secure it.
I am. They have enough permits to drill in a lot of parts of the US.
This isn't about just getting lucky though.
STFU. Who do you think the REPUGLICAN party works for? The rich elites. They're trying to cut your benefits while giving more tax cuts to i-bankers and corporations for private jets.
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