No primaries have been held yet. This thing is far from over. Not until after Iowa, New Hampshire, & South Carolina can we even entertain such thoughts.

I'm just hoping Newt follows the pattern of every anti-Romney flavor-of-the-month so far. I think the press is finally getting around to recounting in detail all the questionable items in the guy's past.


Overall, I've found the selection this cycle depressing. We have a vulnerable president, but can't put up any good candidates to choose from. Flip-flopping Romney, who'd say anything to be elected, is the best choice by default.

(I'm sure I'm probably repeating myself. Ugh, damn this lackluster primary.)

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

Right now Gingrich holds commanding leads in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida. That would mean that three of the first four primaries all go to Gingrich, which is the kind of thing that wins campaigns. Statistically, I'd say it's in his favor

Every person that has temporarily eclipsed Romney had the lead then eventually lost it. What has me worried is that Newt's lead has become larger than the previous anti-Romneys, and the timing might be good for him, so close to the first primary. Regardless, it isn't that frequent that there's an IA/NH/SC sweep in a wide-open election like this. The way the numbers are trending in NH worry me, however. So, it can go either way at this point. Newt could ride his current wave through the primary season, or media coverage of his history could finally derail him.

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

I think that Republicans overestimate Obama's vulnerability.

Yeah, I've said before in response to this that I'm trying not to be too overconfident. Anything can happen in a year.

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

I would say that right now, if unemployment becomes stagnate, he's a little bit more vulnerable that Bush was in 2004, but no more than that...If unemployment goes up for whatever reason (which, barring a total meltdown in Europe, which I don't think is likely) then he's history, but if even a few more months of growth like the last one happen, he's a sure bet for reelection. Americans historically don't care what the unemployment number is as long as they feel like it's moving significantly in the right direction. Seeing as unemployment will be the central issue in this election, and that Republicans really don't have a leg to stand on in criticizing his foreign policy, if unemployment continues to make big jumps it's extremely difficult to see Obama losing.

I think it's more about how Americans feel how the economy is. Regardless of the minimal improvement in the numbers the last month or two, everyone still has a very negative opinion of the economic outlook. Also, the 8% stat is important. Obama promised that his stim packages would prevent the unemployment numbers from getting over 8%. They reached 10%, and are still above 8%. Look for the GOP to harp on that, and the underemployment figures.

Remember that in the 92 election, everyone had a negative outlook on the economy, even though later data showed that the economy bounced back from its temporary recession a quarter before that election. The negative feeling helped sink Bush the elder (along with Perot eating up almost 20% of the vote).

The real numbers aren't encouraging anyway. We're getting excited about possibly getting below 8% unemployment when it was under 5% five years ago, with inflation at 2% and tracking downward. This "new normal" is depressing. Like I said, anything can happen in a year though. If we can get under 7% unemployment, you're right that the electorate might see that as a sign that we're on the right track again (unless the GOP can argue that they're only crappy, McJobs, like the dems tried to argue in 04).

Fighter_McWarrior wrote:

His political trajectory has looked an awful lot like Clinton's so far, and Mitt Romney an awful lot like Bob Dole.

I can agree with the Dole comparison, but Obama looks a lot more like Carter to me. Clinton had the benefit of a booming economy from the internet, Newt forcing the welfare reform, and those two working together to balance the budget. Meanwhile Carter had horrendous unemployment & inflation numbers, and a worsening foreign policy picture every day. With the economy in the straights that it's in, and foreign governments taking advantage of Obama's projected weakness abroad (minus a few isolated successes such as the awesome death of bin Laden), I see Obama as Carter's second term, not Clinton's third.


Re: the nastiness, that's another reason I'm rooting for Newt's defeat. The guy is a nasty bully, and in this dark climate we need someone to project a Reagan-style optimistic view of the future (e.g. "Morning in America," "Shining City on a Hill," and the like). Romney is poised to show his economic experience as being able to provide for a profitable and successful future for the country, while Obama has had almost four years to fix the economy, but has failed. Reagan inherited an even worse economy and it started to improve greatly after just his first two years in office. There's little evidence showing that Obama after more than three years is capable of producing such a large expansion in jobs & GDP as we experienced from 1983 onward. He just offers more regulation and the sacrifice of production for the sake of insolvent green technology.

Or there's the contrarian GOP house instead, sinking our hopes by opposing middle class payroll tax cuts just to stick it to Obama...geez, has that been stupid for Boehner and has been making the party look bad...Consistency!

Edit:
Damn it, this is way too fucking long. Sorry for my verbosity again, guys.

I wish I could be as optimistic about the economy as you are Fighter. At least I can take solace in that some of my friends are way more pessimistic than I am, and irrationally so in my opinion. Things should eventually get better (with the right policies), but the reduced size of the manufacturing sector and the resultant structural changes to our economy worries me and makes me wonder if the historical pattern of previous recoveries will not repeat themselves like they usually do. Inflation and the dollar's weakness doesn't help either.