Race for the White House: 2012

[Gordon B]

I think Obama will be a heavy favorite to win re-election.

I hope the Republican party finds better candidates than Huckabee and Palin.

[Uli]

I predict a Liebermann/Ron Paul ticket against Obama.

[Pete C]

I predict they find one of the last few moderate Republicans to run, and one whose economic policies will be almost identical to Obama's.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Pete C

I predict they find one of the last few moderate Republicans to run, and one whose economic policies will be almost identical to Obama's.

That would be someone like Tim Pawlenty, (who was my top pick to be McCain's VP).

Think the party would survive that?

[Gordon B]

Originally Posted by Uli

I predict a Liebermann/Ron Paul ticket against Obama.

Would Paul run with one of the biggest nannies in the Senate?

[Gary Sisco]

Ah, come on.

No one has any idea what things will look like four years out.

[rollhead]

Hmmmmmmm... four years ago people were predicting Hillary would run (and win) and that Barack Obama was the rising star.

And I don't think it was too hard to see that Rudy and Mac would be in the mix.

[Gary Sisco]

What'd you think on Sept 10, 2001?

Rudy was in the mix alright -- an imaginary mix. Hardly a blip.

Wasn't but a few months ago people -- including alleged leaders -- were saying Obama couldn't be elected.

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Uli

I predict a Liebermann/Ron Paul ticket against Obama.

Will Lieberman be lucid in 2012?

[steve(thelil)]

My feeling is that people's politics are largely dependent on their personalities.

This time around, I think a person who came across as a true conciliator / diplomat won over a man who stood in many ways for anger and war.

I assume that the Republicans will once again wage a campaign which preaches to the converted and is based on anger/war against varieties of "otherness", be it gays, pro-abortion people, socialists, terrorists, Arabs, liberal "Anti-Americans", etc.

If Obama can really change some of his opposition's world views from focusing on "enemies" and what they're against to one of trying to understand people and countries who they disagree with, then he really is the man the world needs. We'll see.

Tom Robbins (the novelist, not the political scribe) has a great line: "The world won't be a better place until the people in it are better people." I have hope for Obama because he really seems to be a man who can inspire people to be better people. I think he won over enough people who don't share his ideology because he seemed like a more evolved human being.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

I think Obama will be a heavy favorite to win re-election.

A cautious type might suspend judgement until after the first inauguration, but not our Gordon.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

I assume that the Republicans will once again wage a campaign which preaches to the converted and is based on anger/war against varieties of "otherness", be it gays, pro-abortion people, socialists, terrorists, Arabs, liberal "Anti-Americans", etc.

If Obama can really change some of his opposition's world views from focusing on "enemies" and what they're against to one of trying to understand people and countries who they disagree with, then he really is the man the world needs. We'll see.

You've hit upon what I see as the core problem of the Republican party: It isn't really for anything, only against things. There's nothing positive or visionary about it, it's a reactionary and regressive party. And it will always see "enemies" everywhere, not knowing that its greatest enemy is itself—and the meager intellectual foundation upon which its ideology is based.

[sonic1]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

I hope the Republican party finds better candidates than Huckabee and Palin.

I don't.

[shrugs]

Palin won't be on Earth. She will be in heaven via the Rapture...

[crawjo]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

I think Obama will be a heavy favorite to win re-election.

I hope the Republican party finds better candidates than Huckabee and Palin.

I'd say the inside track right now (insanely early) belongs to either Romney or Jindal.

Palin and Huckabee are headed for the talk-show circuit.

[Al in NYC]

If things go poorly for Obama, would Hillary Clinton mount an insurgent campaign?

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by crawjo

Palin and Huckabee are headed for the talk-show circuit.

Or the Wal-Mart pep-talk circuit.

"Gimme a W ..."

[Dr Dave]

Gordon, you are incorrigible. I won't take any bets, but I see what remains of the Republican Party (mostly people trying to reverse the results of the Civil War) leaving it to start a new, marginal party--let's call it The Sore Losers Party, or SLP--and moderate Republicans (all ten of them) trying to build a new party that opposes Big Government for reasons other than State's Rights.

You know, it's funny: I still believe in free markets. I don't think we've ever had them in the US (except maybe the automobile industry, and that may not last much longer), but I still think the theory is good. I also understand that free markets are not unregulated markets--quite the contrary. But you don't want to hear all that shit now, and I don't want to bother laying it out, because I don't want to hear it either, and anyway I'm totally unmotivated today, as I am still basking in the light of what we did yesterday.

Really is a mindblower: After all the Bush/Cheney scaremongering, we still elected a guy whose middle name is "Hussein." I am very, very proud of my fellow Americans for doing that. If we can do this, man, we can probably do a lot of good stuff.

I'm sure I'll live to regret this post.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

A cautious type might suspend judgement until after the first inauguration, but not our Gordon.

Absolutely, especially after not waiting to see if the smears and lies the Republicans spread get any kind of traction.

The so-called "America First" and "patriotic" party is alaready getting in gear efforts to destroy the newest Democratic president.

Nice interview tonight on Fresh Air with Mickey Edwards, the former Republican Congressman and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation. He basically said that the sole function of the Republican Party in the last dozen or so years has been to undermine Democrats, and anything involving the good of the country is secondary.

We'll see that being done in the coming weeks. The PR arm of the Republican Party -- talk radio -- has already started.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by crawjo

I'd say the inside track right now (insanely early) belongs to either Romney or Jindal.

Palin and Huckabee are headed for the talk-show circuit.

Jindal is already headed for Iowa this month. So, yes, the race has already started:




DES MOINES, Iowa -- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is fueling speculation of possible long-term presidential ambitions with a planned trip to Iowa (this) month.

Jindal will keynote a fundraising dinner for the Iowa Family Policy Center's "Celebrating the Family" banquet, a high-profile Christian conservative event in a state pivotal in presidential races.

The governor's spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, confirmed that Jindal will attend the event Nov. 22 and also will make a stop in the Cedar Rapids area to see some of the recent flooding damage there.
Click Here

Jindal is considered a rising star on the national Republican scene, and he's traveled to several states lately to fundraise and help other GOP politicians with their fundraising efforts.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by crawjo

Huckabee [is] headed for the talk-show circuit.

Where ya been?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_129525.html

[GoodSpeak]

Originally Posted by shrugs

Palin won't be on Earth. She will be in heaven via the Rapture...

She's already off on an ozone expedition someplace.


Geez, I wonder if she even knows who the French PM is. Hell, I wonder if she even knows which planet she's on.




Do you guys realize just how close she came to being the second in command to the leader of the Free World!?!

Do they sell Gucci here..? OMG!




Gaaaa!

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by Pete C

Where ya been?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0..._n_129525.html

Huckabee has his own TV show? Well, surprise, surprise!

[Squaredancecalling Steve]

http://www.palin4pres2012.com/

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by rollhead

Absolutely, especially after not waiting to see if the smears and lies the Republicans spread get any kind of traction.

Well, they had the whole damn election campaign to see what kind of traction they could get and the answer was: not enough. I'm hoping it will be even more difficult to convince people that Obama is a terrorist-friendly Muslim socialist when he's in the White House acting like an American President.

[Monte Smith]

Towards the end of the campaign, McCain was insinuating that Obama was a socialist, alright--that he was running to be the Redistributor-in-Chief. And the campaign called him, famously, but maybe not insidiously, a celebrity, in what was probably the most effective negative ad of the campaign. It was the only negative ad that seemed to get the traction that Tom seeks. But I get the impression that you guys think this was a particularly nasty campaign season and that McCain crossed a line and was running ads that Obama was a Muslim terrorist. That's not true. Pictures of Barack and Michelle in terror garb were run, yes, but by The New Yorker. Probably the hardest attacks against McCain came from Hillary and it is certain that in the primary elections we saw more of Jeremiah Wright than we did in the general. The meme that Obama is an Osama sleeper agent (delightful!) was surely more of a cultural artifact than a diabolical creation of the McCain campaign. As an aggressive campaigner, McCain was self-woundingly supine. In suggesting that Superbarack has run some kind of unprecedented gauntlet to attain this office, you dudes are mythologizing.

[Gary Sisco]

I just thought McCain's campaign was dumb and a mess. That's all. I don't think the anti-Obama fervor was any more or less angry and dishonest than has become "normal."

[Tom Storer]

I agree that the McCain campaign, while it had moments of terrible sleaze such as the "Obama wants to screen porn videos in kindergarten" ad, was relatively tame when you get right down to it. As Monte pointed out during the primaries, the Rev. Wright videos were fair game and attacked Obama for being anti-American-by-association--but Obama gave a fine speech and then just hunkered down during the primaries, and McCain then refused to use the Wright angle. The Bill Ayers/Tony Rezko associations were also fair game, and, as it turned out, weak stuff. The "celebrity" ads used ridicule to attack him--dumb, but somewhat effective for a minute. What those ads basically did was make fun of Obama supporters to rev up McCain supporters. Not a good way to win those Obama supporters over to your side, though. Also, the charge was too vague. What is celebrity? Fame, riches? McCain has both, too. The "socialism" charges got a few Joe-the-Plumbers scratching their heads and worrying, and might have been more damaging if people weren't so shit-scared about the economy. I also think it just harks back too much to the Cold War--as Gary would say, for Americans now "that was then."

There was nothing to equal the vicious fabrications of the Swift Boat crowd that wore down Kerry. And Obama apparently gave no opening on the bimbo scandal front.

In the end, Obama was a Democrat of particularly impressive temperament and intelligence running against an unimpressive Republican ticket at a time when the Republicans were the most unpopular group in the nation. His skill was to run a campaign, both in the primaries and the general election, that made few errors, thought on its feet, dealt very well with attacks, and organized a vast campaign machinery to use to the fullest every single advantage they could find. In a tortoise-hare scenario, Obama would be the tortoise.

Given all that, I think he would have won even if McCain had run an excellent campaign with a less awful running mate. But it would have been a lot closer.

[Monte Smith]

I agree with much of what you say, Tom. This was always going to be a Democrat year. After eight years of one party, it is usually the other party's time. With an unpopular administration, the odds were even more in the Dems favor. But with the collapse of the financial sector in late September, forget about it.

But also McCain was a bad candidate. The prevailing wisdom was that only a moderate Republican with a history of crossing the aisle could win an election in an atmosphere where the GOP was so unpopular. Nice theory, predictable result. If not even Republicans really liked McCain, I sure don't, then you are dependent on crossover votes. Though he was long the Democrat's favorite Republican, as soon as McCain became the standard-bearer, no Democrat this side of Joe Lieberman had a good word to say for him and no Dem was going to ever elect a "nice" Republican over a breathing Democrat. The GOP chose, as is its wont, the Next Guy in Line to be president. As usual, this was an old grizzled guy with seniority and no campaign chops. The better to wow independents. Put that next to Obama and you are kidding me. It's like the line from Men In Black, where Will Smith compares himself to Tommy Lee Jones: "Old and busted. New hotness."

The genius of American politics is that it can always be reduced to a throwaway line from a Hollywood spectacle.

[Pete C]

For a socialist Obama's really pallin' around with Wall Street.