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The Spectacle Blog
John Podhoretz takes issue with Peter Beinart’s assertion that President Obama will be re-elected in 2012 “because, well, incumbents usually win.” Podhoretz writes:
Ah. Well, yes, it’s true; three of the five presidents who preceded Obama did win reelection. But two didn’t. And while two out of five is, statistically, 40 percent, I’m sure it doesn’t feel like 40 percent to Barack Obama. That’s why he’s gotten a quick jump on 2012-both to raise a historic amount of money and to try to muscle out any possible primary challenges.
President Obama might not be taking any chances but I think Beinart has a point:
Barack Obama will almost certainly win because, well, incumbents usually win. In recent memory, the only incumbents who have lost reelection have had significant primary challenges: Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1992. To find an incumbent who has lost without a major primary challenge, you have to go back to Herbert Hoover in 1932.
Of course, 1932 marked the first Presidential election since the 1929 stock market crash and with it the ascension of FDR. Given the circumstances under which Hoover lost the White House it isn’t a stretch to argue that in order for President Obama to meet the same fate there would have to be a catastrophe greater than the 2008 financial meltdown or even the attacks of September 11, 2001. More importantly, President Obama’s response to such a catastrophe would also have to be so utterly inadequate and incompetent so as to lose the confidence of those who had previously voted for him and who would have otherwise been inclined to support him next year. Those are very long odds indeed.
This isn’t to say that Podhoretz doesn’t have a valid argument:
A week, they used to say, is a lifetime in politics. The next 18 months before the 2012 elections are not a lifetime; they are akin to a millennium. The world is generating news at an unprecedented clip, and there’s no way of telling what’s next. Remember that the conflagration in the Arab world wasn’t even a blip on the radar screen in December, or that an earthquake-tsunami-radiation disaster in Japan was the farthest thing from anybody’s mind when the nation stopped for a few days in the wake of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords in January. No one had then heard of Scott Walker, even though he had won the governorship of Wisconsin.
In the next few months we could be seeing an inflation surge from oil and food prices; an Israel-Hamas war; a major shift in American public opinion on Afghanistan as a weird blowback effect from our involvement in Libya; continuing political unrest in state capitals in the United States; and Charlie Sheen returning to “Two and a Half Men.” And this is just what is conceivably foreseeable. To be certain of a 2012 outcome in any direction, given the nature of the change going on outside the United States and the degree of worry and fear and anger inside the United States is delusional.
Indeed, who on on January 1, 2011 could have conceived that Hosni Mubarak would no longer be President of Egypt by the middle of February? Yet I would argue that if the world is generating news at an unprecedented clip that it is also generating unprecedented short term memory. Unless we are directly affected by a given event it is easy for that event to recede from our memory. Outside of the Gulf Coast, how many people have already forgotten about the Gulf oil spill never mind President Obama’s response to it? Let us also not forget that many people are not politically engaged on a day-to-day basis and only think about elections in the weeks or even days before the vote. How many amongst us don’t remember what we had to eat last Friday much less remember what happened a year ago today? Podhoretz is, of course, right to say that a lot can happen in 18 months but it doesn’t mean it will necessarily adversely affect President Obama’s chances at re-election.
Am I saying that President Obama can’t be beaten? Absolutely not. History might not be on our side but neither is it written in stone. Nevertheless those of us who want to defeat President Obama at the ballot box should be under no illusions that unseating an incumbent President will be a walk in the park especially one without a primary challenger. Make no mistake. The odds against defeating President Obama are enormous and to pretend otherwise would be foolish.
View all comments (9) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/04/06/peter-beinart-has-a-point
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LiveFreeOrDie| 4.6.11 @ 5:10PM
"The odds against defeating President Obama are enormous..."
Nonsense. Odds are expressed in a ratio. Odds cannot be big or small. Unless you do the math as a fraction, i.e. 1 in 3 = 1:3 = 1/3 = 0.333 In this case the larger the number the better the odds, i.e. 3:1 = 3, which is the opposite of what you wrote. I'm not sorry to nitpick as this was your closing statement and ought to be sensible.
More importantly you are right in your assessment. A one billion dollar war chest, MSM in your pocket, an ignorant base and widespread voter fraud will be very difficult to overcome. What do you think about the odds if the election were to be held today?
JASmius | 4.6.11 @ 5:38PM
"The odds against defeating President Obama are enormous and to pretend otherwise would be foolish."
So were the odds of unseating Jimmy Carter 31 years ago. And it won't take another Ronald Reagan to get rid of The One.
What it WILL take is a viable nominee and a focused, principled, aggressive campaign that hammers away at what amounts to Reagan's signature 1980 question: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Which means GOP voters have to break their "Who's turn is it?" fetish, 'cause if it's Romney, we can stick a fork in our "hope for change" right now.
David W| 4.6.11 @ 6:44PM
To add to JASmius comments, Obama's opponent cannot be afraid to attack. The race card will be even bigger, since there are so many failures that will be one of their last resorts.
One hope is that those states who require a real birth certificate will be allowed to do so (I'm sure lawsuits will be filed and liberal judges will do their best to submit restraining orders). I'm not saying that Obama wasn't born in the US. I'm assuming that there is something on it that may cause embarrassment and may question the unquestionable early years of Obama. If he is unable to appear on the ballots of any state that could hurt him in other states.
Clint| 4.6.11 @ 7:06PM
If The Unemployment Rate doesn't drop below 7 percent in 2012. a refrigerator can beat Obama.
Conservatives can certainly vet an acceptable candidate to take Obama down in 2012.
The Tea Party Rebellion Escalates.
Carpe Diem.
Tom Osterman| 4.6.11 @ 10:23PM
I make three predictions:
1) We won't know what will happen until it happens;
2) When it happens, we won't believe what just happened;
3) We won't know what hit us.
Jocon307| 4.7.11 @ 1:47AM
I don't think those fellows lost because they had (unsuccessful) primary challengers. They had primary challengers because they were, (obviously correctly) seen as weak. And I don't know what happens to the stats if you throw LBJ and Nixon into the mix, but Johnson won an overwhelming victory only to be kicked to the curb by the public after his one full term. And Nixon won by a landslide and left in disgrace, which re-elected Clinton would have had to do too, had he been a Republican. (But I know AmSpec readers know THAT!)
Obama isn't doing well in the WH. In addition he has very much betrayed his anti-war base.
It may be too soon to be sure he won't get a primary challenger.
It's sort of silly, isn't it, that's he's officially declared before Mitt Romney?
PS-while wiki-ing LBJ to make sure I had my facts straight I see he was one of only 4 people to be congressman, senator, VP and Pres, the 4 elected federal offices. That's interesting!
PKane| 4.7.11 @ 8:24AM
I'm glad to see that at least some conservatives recognize the challenge ahead. Its also worth noting that despite low ratings, an abysmal record, inept handling of multiple crises around the world AND an opponent who would become known as one of the greatest political figures in American history Jimmy Carter was STILL poised to win reelection until the last week or so of the campaign.
Look at Gerald Ford. He inspired no one and had a ton of baggage from Nixon. The economy was terrible. He had just presided over America's first military defeat. His opponent was fresh faced, charismatic and undermined the "southern strategy" that had served Nixon so well. He made terrible debate gaffs. At one point he was down more then 30 points in the polls. Still, Ford almost pulled it off.
I agree completely about our short term memories. I've said for a while that aliens could land on the national mall tomorrow and the story would only dominate the news for about a week before everyone got bored and moved on to the next overblown story.
Once again,for all our endless debate and speculation this election will be largely decided in the last week or two based on some pointless gaff or something
Mike Gabel| 4.7.11 @ 9:54AM
Agree, this will be an ugly, vicious street fight. It is a fight, however, conservatives must win if we hope to restore our country's exceptionalism.
Obama is a bully, a cheater and a liar, and he will use those characteristics in addition to illegal means to win a second term. Believe me, this means EVERYTHING to him.
For conservatives: No complacency, no surrender. Fight the good fight. All problems are easy to solve when you rely on conservative principles.