Obama's 2012 victory: Bigger or Smaller than Clinton 96?

[Antonio the Sixth]

If Obama manages to resolve economical crisis in his term, it will certainly be a democratic landslide. For the moment, there are reasons to be hopeful.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This question.... Is hard to predict. It depends on the economy, and how the voters react. My natural instinct, however I wish against it is that he will be re-elected. Will it be larger then Clinton's, likely. But not by very much. Obama is, as I have studied, going to not suceed massively. He'll be an Ehhhhh.... President, according to my philosiphies and political views. The Only Real Reason He will be re-elected, in my opinion, will be to his massive cult of personality. The Economic crisis, is not a recession. It's a Depression.  It will be in a recession, likely, for the next 3-4 years, globally, not just In the US. We will then have slow economic growth, about 1.5-2.0%, a year. We will then hold Obama accountable for his presidency. Picture FDR, without victory in WWII in his legacy. He will be not a unifying figure, but rather a divise figure among the parties and people, as is one of my great political heroes, Ronald Reagan, is today.

Roosevelt is probably the better president ( with Johnson ) of th 20th Century. His action during the Great Depression was a revolution in political economy. The only thing we can reproach to him is his attitude during the Yalta accords.
He just don't accepted to be ruled by conservative ideas, and managed to improve economy. After the World War II, America knowed a long era of prosperity and equality. The only thing Reagan did is to destroy the social system who permitted the sharing of prosperity. Gradually, we saw inequalities growing ( in many European countries as in the USA ), and gradulally these inequalities had bad consequences for the economy. The economical policies of Bush are the last example : he reduced taxes for more wealthy and tried to abolish the Social Security system. These ideological policies have many responsabilities in the current economic crisis. Now we need a new pragmatic policies, who accept the past's lessons and have the audacity to be resolutely progressive.
Probably Obama's first term will be tough, as Roosevelt's first was. But people finally will be gratefull to him.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I look at Obama, ignore his political slant (which one must do to be objective, unless the ideology is outright Marxism or fascism)  and try to compare and contrast him to other Presidents. It's clear that nobody could ever be compared to George Washington because he defined what the Presidency is... and anyone who deviates from that norm unduly and without a valid excuse (prime example: Dubya) is likely a disaster. All Presidents will divide public opinion in their time, and assessments are generally more valid after history has muted the debates. But that means that one could have no fun with Dubya and could never speculate upon Obama.

(Well, Dubya was not good for my fun when he was President, but that's a different story). 

He didn't put a country back together as did Lincoln, and he has no such chance unless he foments a civil war -- which is just as well that he doesn't. Can he save Western Christian Civilization as did FDR? Things aren't as dangerous now as they were in 1933, when the Devil Incarnate took power in Germany... and let us hope that things don't get that bad. There's no cheap land to be annexed as Jefferson found available,  and we don't have the loose ends to tie up at the end of victory as with Truman. The closest parallel in a military situation is in 1953, when Eisenhower was able to negotiate an end to the Korean "police action"... the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been more inexcusably bungled, and dealings with the Russians or Chinese will be far easier in 2009 than in 1953. Eisenhower of course did not have an economy so badly fouled-up as this one, and he didn't have the vile consequences a predecessor's amoral and immoral choices to undo.   

Theodore Roosevelt? Intriguing comparison. But I will have to hold off on comparing Obama to TR for a long time. Obama would need to do some major reforms to compare to what many people consider the second-best peacetime President that we ever had.   

I see one distressing parallel; I have a hobby that causes me to look at microfilms of old newspapers, and I notice the high expectations that Americans had of Herbert Hoover -- expectations badly betrayed. It is possible that he could bungle the economy as did Hoover... but it looks as if much damage happened before Obama won the Presidency. Should he reverse or undo much of the damage that his dreadful predecessor does, then he is at least above average.

We have seen little more than one month of his administration, and the closest parallel that I can see is... Ronald Reagan. (Note the rule: ignore the ideology unless it is certifiably extreme).

Until at least 2012 the economic distress that we feel will be associated with Dubya, and any improvement in economic realities will be associated with Obama. Such would be the same with John McCain were he elected in 2008. McCain wasn't elected, probably because he couldn't separate himself enough from a failed President.

He has set high standards (not that matters much; so did Jimmy Carter, and look what that did for him!), and whatever bad policies of the previous Administration he could reverse early, he reversed quickly.

Slow economic growth? We will be fortunate to have even that. The write-offs of bad debts will be charges against GDP so long as there are bad debts associated with corrupt lending that one associates with Dubya's financial nuttiness.  The stimulus may keep people from starving and shivering -- good in itself -- but the real growth in America will come from where it usually has come: small business that can't cartelize industry, can't buy lobbyists, can't corrupt the political process, and can't always sell out to realize quick profits. A reversion to the high taxes that Republicans loathe would be a return to an economic environment compatible with small businesses as in the 1950s. Take away the institutional racism, the male chauvinism, the Red Scare, and add circa-2010 technology, and the 1950s would be the dream for much of America.

If we go in eight years from a Hoover-era America to an Eisenhower-era America, then many will be happy. He won't need any cult of personality to create a strongly-positive reputation for himself.

You probably are right : Obama is for progressism what Reagan was for conservatism. But many of his policies will consist in undoing what Reagan did ( to redo what FDR, Truman and Johnson did ). What is clear for me, is that Obama is one of the presidents who durably and deeply changed their country's ideology : FDR was the first to introduce the idea that the State could be usefull for the economy, Reagan managed to make the Americans forget that... Obama will elaborate an 21th century progressism who learned the past's lessons but also adapt them to the present situation.