Obama in 2012
The big question of the 2012 election is who the Republicans will put up against President Obama, but whether or not Obama will run really isn’t a question at all. Even now, with his approval ratings dropping almost every day, he’s still got plenty enough clout to carry the Democrat Party through the primaries. It’s rather unlikely that anyone would stand up to Obama in the first place, seeing as he crafted the most finely-tuned, efficient campaign probably in the history of the United States. His abilities as a candidate are unprecedented, so it’s likely that the Democrats will not experience any major fissure over who will run in 2012.
We’ve still got 3 years though, so there is still the possibility. But unlike LBJ in ‘68, Obama’s wars aren’t his – they’re the Republicans. And as far as the economy goes, there’s an end in sight. Though unemployment has risen above 10%, the economy apparently grew at a rate of 3.5% at an annuated rate during 2009’s third quarter. Rock on. So unless things take another downturn – which is probably unlikely – Obama’s not going to have any reason to step out of the race.
The question is what he’ll do over the next two years before hitting the campaign trail again. He’s spent a lot – a LOT – of his political capital on the stimulus and health care, and the Republicans have effectively reamed him for every single action he’s taken, from having beers with Henry Gates and the cop that arrested him to “indoctrinating” kids with “socialist propaganda” to winning an admittedly undeserved Nobel Peace Prize. No Drama Obama might have to hit back eventually, because it appears that taking certain criticisms sitting down is not, as he might have hoped, making him look like the bigger man. And when he does hit back, he needs to do it in a better way than telling the other networks not to listen to Fox, which is just a bit more Machiavellian (or Nixonian, if you’re not so into 16th century Florentine political references) than most were hoping from the Change We Can Believe In.
He also has to deal with the stunning upsurge in cynicism and the staggering lack of memory among the American public. Only 6 months into his presidency, this blogger was seeing bumper stickers that read “How’s that Hope and Change Working out for you?” Unrealistic as it may sound, the Promise of Candidate Obama in 2008 had the feelings of a Revolution, so many who were voting him, if not consciously expecting it, were naively hoping that on the day Bush left Washington, Obama would lead us into a modern Utopia.
But, as it turns out, America is holding fast to its protectionist roots, and still doesn’t really want to cooperate on a world stage. It would be, as we say, sacrificing our sovereignty to bow to such trifles as international law and binding treaties, and a public that supports – in all objectivity – militant yahoos like Glenn Beck isn’t one that’s going to take Obama’s subtler, more nuanced approach to international politics sitting down.
While he’s still immensely popular abroad, more and more people within the U.S. have issues with his pussy-footing around the Iranian election, taking his time to condemn the regimes heavy-handed tactics in putting down the protests, and now he’s catching flak for not being hard enough on the Honduran coup leaders or Chavez’s blustery warmongering against Colombia. Though Obama won what could be called on the fringes of a landslide, apparently a large number of those voters wanted change but still had a strain of Bush’s cowboy diplomacy running through them. When something happens in another country, they still expect superlatives of fire and brimstone spewing from the executive’s mouth, and No Drama Obama don’t want none of that. So he may need to do some PR work on his foreign policy.
As far as Human Rights, well, he never had a chance there, did he? Human Rights activists are notoriously easy to disappoint, and Obama’s tenuous connection to his Christian roots (in the eyes of the public, not in reality) are keeping him from openly supporting the gays or going gung-ho on his pro-choice stances. Closing Guantanamo turned into a hellstorm, because apparently Americans who were anti-Gitmo never realized that the inmates would have to go SOMEWHERE, and hey, that might be your local Supermax prison (Supermax prisons, for the record, have a perfect record when it comes to escapes). Sigh. It’s never that easy, Barack, is it?
So yeah, Obama’s got a lot on his plate before January ‘12. He’s got to start pleasing a lot more groups, and it’d help if Iraq didn’t implode in on itself like a dying star. My recommendations? Glad you asked. If Barack does one of these things, he’s safe for the nomination and the election:
1) Catch Bin Laden.
2) Take us into a new Golden Age
3) Defeat Glenn Beck in a cage match to the death
4) Go back to capitalizing off of the cuteness of his family (now with Bobama!)
Then again, what it’ll really come down to is the Republicans. And let’s face it, that’s an uphill battle.
According to a recent poll, only eighty-two percent of Democrats would re-elect Obama if they could vote today. They voted for hope and ended up with change.