Barack Obama will win reelection

[anvi]

I'm in Obama's corner.  But I'm puzzled about why everyone is so confident that Obama will outpace his electoral vote performance in '08 and win by more in '12.  Dissatisfaction with the GOP was sky high in 2008; all you had to do was say the word "change" and you were guaranteed 320 electoral votes.  Things won't be like that next year at all.  I think the state of the labor market will be the biggest factor, and taxes and the deficit will be big issues in '12 too.  I don't think Obama will get any Republican swing votes next time, and the TEA party will up the GOP returns in a number of states.  Obama will tick down in support from Independents, though not as badly as some think now.  I also worry considerably that the Democratic base will be, as they are now, lukewarm to hostile toward him; they won't vote against him of course, but they'll stay home.  If the base doesn't turn out for Obama next November, I think he'll be toast.

I'm not sure if it matters much who the Republican nominee is.  As long as the GOP doesn't run a nutter, the nominee, even if they are a bit lackluster, will compete well against an Obama whose appeal has considerably weakened.

I don't see any realistic scenario electorally in which Obama hangs onto Indiana and I doubt he'll get to keep North Carolina either.  I think keeping states like Florida and Ohio will in the end prove unsuccessful.  Virginia and Iowa will be dogfights.  Obama will mostly do fine in the west, though keeping Nevada with its persistently nasty foreclosure rates won't be easy.  If he wins, I think the final tally will surely be narrower than in 2008, and quite possibly much narrower.   

The only way I see Obama getting anywhere near (still not surpassing) his results in 2008 is if he either chews up or just outclasses the GOP nominee in the debates and the nation just decides that, while it's not happy with where things are yet, they don't want to risk handing a slow recovery over to someone who might not have clear solutions.

But I don't think this latter scenario will happen.  Obama's negatives and the lagging state of job recovery will hurt him.  But, at the same time, Obama is a lot politically tougher than his opponents like to think.  All these factors will, it seems to me, make 2012 a competitive race.     

[anvi]

anvikshiki, I dont' see anyone on the pub side who can hold a candle to Obama right now........

I hope you're right Grumps.  I'm more worried about Obama's negatives than the opponent's positives.

Only one person has said more, and another said "by a lot."

You're right, brittain33; I shouldn't have said "everyone."  And I hope you're right about the result too.  I'm just not that confident at the moment.

[anvi]

There is another precedent to consider here though.  The three presidents who failed to win reelection bids in the last hundred years (Hoover, Carter, Bush '41) were all thrown out on bad economies.  The economy per se is in better shape than it was when Obama took office of course, and will almost certainly continue to improve.  But the labor market is still bad, and if it doesn't improve markedly in the next year and a half, that spells trouble for the president.

If, on the other hand, it does improve markedly, then I'd agree with all that's been said about precedent and Republican opponents, and Obama should be in good shape to win a second term.

There is a sort of cruel irony in all of this, insofar as the country has come to look upon the president as the "job-creator-in-chief," when in fact, no matter who is sitting in the oval office, he is nothing of the kind. 

[anvi]

Not yet, no.  But Clinton didn't look to everyone like a high-caliber opponent to a lot of people until after New Hampshire (although I thought he was high-calbier all along), and it occurs to me that a lot of the electorate were really unsure about Reagan until his debate with Carter right before the general election.

Please don't get me wrong, guys.  I'm in Obama's corner; I have been since he was a state legislator here in Illinois.  But I have always thought it important to separate who I am rooting for from analyzing the situation as objectively as I can so I can get the lay of the land.  As of now, the president needs to have some things break for him, and he has to get a solid message for the nation down.

And I think, to be honest, what I am really worried about is the Democratic base.  If what I see on this forum, combined with what I hear on lefty media, combined with what national polls register, is all true, than the Democratic base really does not like this president.  If that base in 2012 stays home, either through lukewarmness or hostility, or alternatively overconfidence, that spells trouble too.