Amazing. After one upset in the presidential primaries with Newt Gingrich winning the South Carolina primary, Republicans and conservatives have formed their usual circular firing squad and are tearing themselves apart with dire prognostications about an Obama re-election.
At the urging of Democrat operatives all over TV, Republicans across the nation are fantasizing apocalyptic thoughts – that Gingrich is going to be the nominee, that he will drag down the whole party, that Gingrich can never win the White House, that Romney is toast and that we must immediately recruit Jeb Bush to defeat Obama.
To which Nikitas3.com says: Chill out, folks. The election is ten months away. And while this concern is certainly part of the territory, it masks the intense worry on the Democrat side which is worse than on our side. And that worry is that Obama cannot possibly be re-elected. They are terrified about this.
Yes, friends, you heard it right. Obama’s real re-election prospects are dismal. Even prominent Democrats and reliably liberal commentators have urged Obama to drop out.
So stop fretting about our side. Think about the Democrats for just a minute, OK?
Here’s why: Imagine it is Labor Day 2012 and you start seeing ads saying thing like this, from an article by Joseph Curl in the Washington Times:
‘The unemployment rate when Mr. Obama was elected was 6.8 percent; today it is 8.5 percent — at least that’s the official number. In reality, the Financial Times writes, “if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent.”
In addition, there are now fewer payroll jobs in America than there were in 2000 — 12 years ago — and now, 40 percent of those jobs are considered “low paying,” up 10 percent from when President Reagan took office. The number of self-employed has dropped 2 million to 14.5 million in just six years.
Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years. (By the way, if you’re keeping score at home, gas was $1.40 a gallon when George W. Bush took office in 2001, $1.68 when he left office — a 20 percent increase.)
Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, with households now paying a record $1,420 annually on average, up some $300.
Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.
Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent. Total spending has more than doubled in just four years to a record high of $75 billion. In 2011, more than 46 million people — about one in seven Americans — got food stamps. That’s 14 million more than when Mr. Obama took office.
Median household income has dropped nearly 7 percent in the last six years, taking inflation into account. What’s more, nearly 20 percent of males age 25 to 34 now live with their parents.
Low- and middle-income Americans 65 and older now hold more than $10,000 in credit card debt, up 26 percent since 2005. The average age of the American car is 10 years; in 1990, it was 6.5 years old (by the way, in 1985, Americans bought 11 million cars; in 2009, less than half that, 5.4 million).
On the macro side, America’s annual budget has jumped to $3.8 trillion — and yet the United States brings in only about $2.1 trillion in revenue. The U.S. trade deficit for 2011 was $558 billion. America’s total public debt stands at $15.23 trillion; in January 2009, the debt was $10.62 trillion. Mr. Obama is on pace to borrow $6.2 trillion in just one term — more debt than was amassed by all presidents from Washington through Bill Clinton combined. The debt is rising by $4.2 billion every day — $175 million per hour, nearly $3 million per minute.’
Wow. You forgot that it was that bad, didn’t you. Because you are allowing the Media Left to control your thoughts. But American voters know the pain in their everyday lives; it is burned into them.
OK, so now imagine that these were the stats on a GOP president. Republicans across the nation would be writing final farewells to their families. Yet here we are fretting about which Republican candidate is going to take on a Democrat president with the worst economic record of the last 50 years.
How about all this:
*Look at this shocking statistic from CNN in an essay entitled ‘Have the youth given up on Obama’? (with italics added for emphasis):
‘In 2008, the youth vote helped sweep Barack Obama into office. Americans 18-29 spread the word on social media, energized fundraising and went to the polls. …The 18-29 vote is up for grabs in 2012 because youth can’t afford cars to put bumper stickers on and those t-shirts are worn out from too many days sitting on the couch unemployed. The sobering reality: just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs. And earlier this year, Americans’ student loan debt surpassed credit card debt for the first time ever.’
*Gallup, the polling organization, recently reported on its website:
‘PRINCETON, NJ — Americans’ political ideology at the midyear point of 2011 looks similar to 2009 and 2010, with 41% self-identifying as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 21% as liberal.’
Is Obama cooked? It sure looks that way. He cannot mathematically win if these facts are true.
*Gallup.com also recently reported:
‘Two in three Americans (64%) say big government will be the biggest threat to the country, one percentage point lower than the record high, and more than twice the number who say the same about big business (26%). Democrats have led the recent increase in concerns about big government.’
*USAToday.com recently reported:
‘Since the heady days of 2008, a new USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States Poll finds the number of voters who identify themselves as Democratic or Democratic-leaning in these key states has eroded, down by 4 percentage points, while the ranks of Republicans have climbed by 5 points. …This is the second in a series of surveys that USA TODAY and Gallup will be taking through the 2012 campaign focused on 12 swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In swing states, Obama trails former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among registered voters by 5 points, 43% vs. 48%, and former House speaker Newt Gingrich by 3, 45% vs. 48%.’
Wow. And the Republicans are fighting amongst each other. This is stupid. They should be pointing out these polls.
AP wrote about an Associated Press-GfK poll:
‘For the first time, the poll found that a majority of adults, 52 percent, said Obama should be voted out of office while 43 percent said he deserves another term. The numbers mark a reversal since last May, when 53 percent said Obama should be re-elected while 43 percent said he didn’t deserve four more years.
*Activists on the political left from Ralph Nader to Dennis Kucinich have called for a presidential primary challenge to Barack Obama. This is only adding insult to Obama’s current political injury.
*A columnist in Obama’s hometown paper The Chicago Tribune is calling for Obama to step aside. Wrote Steven Chapman:
‘The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, “it’s going to be impossible for the president to win.” Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: “Panic.”
But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.
That might be the sensible thing to do. It’s hard for a president to win a second term when unemployment is painfully high. If the economy were in full rebound mode, Obama might win anyway. But it isn’t, and it may fall into a second recession. Why not leave of his own volition instead of waiting to get the ax?’
*To add to Obama’s problem, second terms are usually troublesome for presidents. Nixon and Watergate; Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal; Bush and the Iraq war. So after Obama has had one major success in the first term from the left-wing point of view – the health care bill – he also is being perceived by many as the President Who Ruined America. And with Republicans likely to be controlling both the House and Senate after the 2012 election, Obama, if re-elected, would be in for some really tough sledding.
*Here is tireless Obama cheerleader Chris Matthews of MSNBC talking about Obama and a possible second term:
“What are we trying to do in this administration? Why does he want a second term? Would he tell us? What’s he going to do in the second term? More of this? Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Where are we going? Are we going to do something the second term? He has yet to tell us. He has not said one thing about what he would do in the second term.
He never tells us what he is going to do with reforming our healthcare systems, Medicare, Medicaid, how is going to reform Social Security. Is he going to deal with long-term debt? How? Is he going to reform the tax system? How? Just tell us. Why are we in this fight with him? Just tell us, Commander, give us our orders and tell us where we’re going, give us the mission. And he hasn’t done it.
And I think it’s the people around him, too many people around, they’re little kids with propellers on their heads…. Don’t you feel, I think everybody feels an absence of communication from the time he’s been elected. And it’s not about not being left-wing enough or too left. That’s not his problem. It’s connection.“
Meanwhile black/Muslim demagogue Louis Farrakhan has called Obama an “assassin” for the US role in killing Ghaddafi in Libya. This will fray Obama’s radical base further.
*Here is US News & World Report talking about Obama:
‘President Obama’s slow ride down Gallup’s daily presidential job approval index has finally passed below Jimmy Carter, earning Obama the worst job approval rating of any president at this stage of his term in modern political history.
Since March, Obama’s job approval rating has hovered above Carter’s, considered among the 20th century’s worst presidents, but today Obama’s punctured Carter’s dismal job approval line. On their comparison chart, Gallup put Obama’s job approval rating at 43 percent compared to Carter’s 51 percent.’
Note: Carter was swamped by Ronald Reagan in 1980.
*Here are two political consultants, Doug Schoen and Patrick Caddell, writing in The Wall Street Journal. Schoen is a lifelong Democrat operative and Caddell was Jimmy Carter’s pollster who is now much more of an independent:
‘Certainly, Mr. Obama could still win re-election in 2012. Even with his all-time low job approval ratings (and even worse ratings on handling the economy) the president could eke out a victory in November. But the kind of campaign required for the president’s political survival would make it almost impossible for him to govern—not only during the campaign, but throughout a second term.
Put simply, it seems that the White House has concluded that if the president cannot run on his record, he will need to wage the most negative campaign in history to stand any chance. With his job approval ratings below 45% overall and below 40% on the economy, the president cannot affirmatively make the case that voters are better off now than they were four years ago. He—like everyone else—knows that they are worse off.
President Obama is now neck and neck with a generic Republican challenger in the latest Real Clear Politics 2012 General Election Average (43.8%-43.%). Meanwhile, voters disapprove of the president’s performance 49%-41% in the most recent Gallup survey, and 63% of voters disapprove of his handling of the economy, according to the most recent CNN/ORC poll.’
*Here is Thomas Edsall writing in The New York Times:
‘For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.
All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.’
*Add that to this excerpt from CNN.com and you see white ‘Reagan Democrats’ abandoning Obama like they abandoned Carter in 1980:
‘“The biggest change comes among white Democrats with no college education, a group typically considered the core of the party’s blue-collar constituency,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Half of all white Democrats with no college education say they don’t want President Obama heading their party’s ticket next year.”’
So Republicans and conservatives… relax. Things are going to turn out fine.