look at it this way, if unemployment keeps dropping and starts getting closer to 8% or below(which given the Obama admin controls the Dept of Labor I have no doubt it will, none of these folks will beat Obama anyway.
I’m continually amazed by the amount of people on our side who don’t realize how popular Obama is. I guess it’s the old echo chamber.(That’s why most of the big names on our side didn’t run I believe, they know 2016 is a much better shot against someone like Biden, Cuomo in NY, Warner in VA, whoever)
Obama won 70 million votes last time. 70 million. He gets 95% of the black vote and 65% of the hispanic vote just by showing up. He has more media support than any other candidate in history. He has more money than any other candidate in history(by a large margin).
Even at the depths of his unpopularity and the bad economy he never really dipped below 42 or 43% in apporval rating on the avg. Consider that W spent his entire 2nd term close to 30% and was around 25% by the time of the 2008 election. So, no mattter how unpopular Obama is, he’s still almost 20 pts more popular than W was.
He has all the Kerry/Gore states locked up already. Basically he needs one of OH/FL or 2 of VA/NC/IN/CO/NV/NM/IA to win.
And he hasn’t even started to campaign yet, really.
From 1980-88 the GOP went 17/17 in CA/PA/IL/MI/NJ/NY, losing only NY in 88. From 92-08 they’re 0/30, and highly likely to be 0/36 come November of next year. I don’t know how to explain that or what happened, but 6 straight winless cycles after 3 straight undefeated cycles in all those states have to mean something.
I wish it weren’t the case, but it looks like the economy is going to improve enough for him. Of course, lots of things can still happen. Maybe it’ll go back up to 9% instead of dipping below 8%. Maybe he just totally falls apart like Carter did.
If Newt beats Obama, anybody would have beaten him. No one in politics can ever be said again to be unelectable. Axelrod shoud retire if he can’t win that race. Of course it also shows the weakness of the current field that Newt is doing so well. No one stepped up and he was the only one left.
But, as a politics junkie, watching Newt and Obama go at it would at least be fun and interesting. At least Newt will make the conservative case better than anyone else. At least there’s a chance Newt may embarrass Obama at a debate and chnage everything. Can’t say the same for Romney. If we’re going to lose, may as well have some fun.
The bottom line is, the American people were stupid enough to vote for the Gay, Kenyan, Muslim Marxist the first time, they’re stupid enough to vote for him again.
I hear ya, but I’m not there yet. I have true concerns about Gingrich, enough to make me probably not vote for him in the primaries at least. In the general, I will vote for the GOP nominee.
I agree with you that Obama is not out of it at this point, not by a long shot.
One thing that will work in Obama’s favor is that if Newt becomes the nominee, and as that process unfolds, he seems to be continually sapping the life out of the Tea Party mentality.
At least when Herman Cain was the frontrunner we were having heated and fruitful discussions comparing ideas of MASSIVE TAX REFORM!
What have we talked about since Gingrich got a shot because of Cain’s stumbles? Gingrich’s baggage, trying to explain Gingrich’s statements (on amnesty, etc.), kids as janitors, debates with teleprompters and so on. Vintage Gingrich — all over the map and, in the big picture, so far signifying nothing.
Any candidate who is not focused on MASSIVE TAX REFORM (because that is inextricably intertwined with entitlement reform as well) is just not serious about solving our nation’s problems.
Moreover, without this focus on stopping spending and cutting taxes, the whole fervor of the organic reform movement known as the Tea Party flickers out. What are we left we? Business as usual in Washington.
We can’t survive more business as usual in Washington, I don’t think. If our next President cannot INSPIRE conservatives, we’re done. Because conservatives are the only people focused on saving the country.
Gingrich tends to demoralize and splinter conservatives, not inspire them — always has. I hope he’s changed, but I don’t see any real evidence that he has.
I fear we’ve already lost our moment for building the necessary grassroots support for massive tax reform. Many people seem to be willing to say, Oh, Newt’ll fix it, you know, some smart way that he’ll explain to us later.