It is becoming more and more apparent (at least to me) that Barack Obama is going to lose the election this fall. Firstly, Mitt Romney gives off the aura of being able to handle an economy that has largely failed to respond thus far (and it has become a pattern that incumbents fall when the economy is suffering, cf. Berlusconi, Papandreou, Zapatero, Sarkozy.) Secondly, there appears to be an inability on the part of many white Americans to stomach the idea of a black-skinned man and woman being in charge of the White House.
This forecast could be overturned by the highly unlikely possibility of Hillary Clinton landing on the vice-presidential ticket, in which case the election would be for the Democrats a... slam dunk. The appearance on Charlie Rose last week of Hillary, who in the past did not enjoy the affection of a sizeable number of Americans, was revealing. Her magisterial performance even outshone that of her co-interviewee and early predecessor, the formidable James Baker. (Of course, the comparison is a little unfair: Hillary is in possession of all the inside information; Baker is not).
Assuming there will be no October surprise, or equivalent, to tarnish the record of the Obama presidency, the incumbent will go down to an honorable defeat this fall. This leaves open the question of 2016, when the United States will be even more diverse than it is now and this would be an assist for Obama. Also, there would be an inevitable erosion of support for a (Romney) presidency.
The way would be open for a comeback. But only if Obama would be so disposed and would have the desire for it, after all the hatred he has endured at the hands of right-wing zealots during the past nearly four years.
This scenario has happened once before in American history. Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd (1885-1889) and the 24th (1893-1897) president. After his first term, he ran against Benjamin Harrison and lost. There was a repeat match in 1892 and Cleveland won over Harrison. Substitute Romney for Harrison and Obama for Cleveland and therein lies the speculative match-up.
 |
 |
|
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
There's lots of bad blood (still) over 2004, and 2008 helpfully air-dropped millions of gallons of gasoline on the still-burning forest fire. I remember hearing MoveOn.org derided as "wishful thinkers", but if we can't move on and come together, then what are we as a nation? Why even BOTHER being a unified nation if we can't unite?
I've been saying for thirty years that the single greatest tragedy to ever befall these United States was the victory of the Union in the Civil War. "We" "beat" an opponent seen as backward, ignorant, intolerant, intolerable… but in force-fitting the country together again, we became more like them. Without any real reconciliation (Reconstruction taking the Potemkin-village approach to social unity), we've left ourselves vulnerable to exactly the kind of chicanery from all sides that we've seen these past decades.
If anybody has ideas on how to solve these problems — real solutions, not just pitting one corporate-funded élite rump of a political party against another — I've yet to hear them. I voted for Obama last time round because I got suckered by the hopey-changey thing into believing he WOULD be the anti-Bush.
We need the real thing this time, if not sooner.
Interesting to read such a… unique… viewpoint, while in the column immediately to the right is a poll map suggesting a 253-191 electoral-college majority for Obama if the election were held today.
What disturbed me, and got me thinking about what a fix we're in no matter who's in the White House seven months from now, was the geographical picture the map painted. California, Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Minnesota, Illinois and New England were solid blue. Nevada, Colorado and Virginia leaning light blue. (Maybe because those states have large parts of their population in urban areas that see government as part of any solution to their problems, or as a paycheck?) Practically every other state in red. The remainder of the Old South and the Midwest. The northern tier from the Dakotas west to Idaho and Utah.
I remember seeing similar breakdown maps for Nixon-Humphrey on up to Reagan-Mondale as more of a patchwork affair; even when the electoral-college result was as lopsided as Reagan winning over Mondale, the polling maps six months before the election did not seem so regionally uniform to the inexpert eye as what we have here.
If the (purported) purpose of an election is to present a competition between two different philosophies of governance, and the voters decide; but if people in different parts of the country are this polarized these past several years, how much longer can we keep going like this?