Obama's re-election prospects

Peggy Noonan's weekend Wall Street Journal column (which is always posted online on Friday for some reason, though it appears in print on Saturday) makes the case that "Obama Is Likely to Lose" unless Republicans nominate someone truly strange or unappealing to independents. Peggy doesn't say so, but surely she has in mind Trump, Huckabee, and Palin with this remark. And John has previously discussed this same subject here on Power Line.

"You know the conventional wisdom. It is that unemployment ticking down, plus the economy inching back, plus the power of the presidency to affect events, equal a likely Obama victory in 2012. Smart people, especially Republicans, believe this. But how about this for a thought: It's not true. It's all wrong. Barack Obama can be taken, and his adversaries haven't even noticed. In fact, he will likely lose in 2012."

Sounds reasonable. But I also recall Peggy confidently predicting in Forbes magazine back around 1993 or so that Bill Clinton would be a one-term president. As Sam Goldwyn, or maybe it was Yogi Berra, is reported to have said, "Never prophesy--especially about the future."

Uber-blogger Glenn Reynolds is fond of the tag line that a repeat of Jimmy Carter may be the best case scenario for the Obama presidency, and let's hope he's right about Obama repeating Carter's one-term tenure. Right now Obama's standings in the polls--a little below 50 percent approval rating, occasionally peeking above 50--looks decent for such a bad economy and such a large number (about 65 percent) saying the country is on the wrong track. But I got curious about one particular parallel with Carter. So I dug back into the poll data for Carter starting in June of 1978 and plotted it next to Obama's approval rating

Peggy Baby, the really smart people on the right (the kind you probably never meet in your elitist circles) know that unemploment is STUCK IN THE MUD at close to 10% except that the Regime jimmies the numbers every month.

Likewise, the economy isn’t really coming back. The Dow is merely a reflection of people and companies with money preferring to play stocks than to engage in hiring or business expansion OUT OF FEAR OF OBAMA and OBAMACARE.

Plus Obama’s lame efforts to pull himself out of the approval ditch with windy, lying speeches is doing him NO GOOD AT ALL. See Rasmussen Reports.

What “smart” observers notice is that Obama not only can be beat, he SHOULD be beat.

He is making an ass of himself. And a basket case of America.

for years I've been telling you - in this column, in the media and in speeches around the country - one simple truth: only about half of Americans vote, even in high turnout years. Those who vote do so for a reason, and that reason is always that they care about something, or someone. You must motivate people to turn them out. Annoy them and they stay home. There's always room to expand either group. And the guy who turns out more of his supporters always wins. Almost no Republicans have understood this. They have listened to a left-wing media trying to destroy them, constantly telling them to “run to the middle” (as if people who want to elect liberals won't just vote for a real one). They have listened to their paid consultants, who make ungodly sums on television ads but not a penny organizing volunteer GOTV (get out the vote) efforts. And they have listened to their own officeholders, who, having picked the low-hanging fruit, managed to get elected by doing these things, but whose counsel is virtually worthless in the harder battles being fought today. I have preached this for years. Run to your base: give them a reason to vote by giving them an agenda worth voting for and meaning it. And then organize the activists necessary to find them and get them to the polls.
See, I Told You So vanguard ^ | November 5, 2004 | Rod D. Martin
Or as I would put it, uncompromised conservatism is logically coherent and consistent. "Moderates" retreat from an easily defensible position in hope of appeasing people who actually don't want to vote for them. But when you start by withdrawing from a strong position to an untenable one, the only result you can expect is defeat.
Nominate a strong candidate like Reagan, get attacked by journalists like Reagan was attacked - and win like Reagan won.
Nominate a weak candidate like Dole or McCain, get attacked like Reagan was attacked anyway - and lose like McCain and Dole lost.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.