January 24, 2010

Obama will win in 2012

By: AF Editors

I’ll do my best to falsify that prediction, but I think it’s still the most likely outcome. I made this point two months ago. But in light of Scott Brown’s victory, it needs to be made again. However, rather than quoting myself, I’ll quote Bob Woodward, who said it quite well last Sunday on NBC:

Lou Cannon, who [was] the White House correspondent for The Washington Post, wrote the–he’s the premiere biographer of Reagan, and after Reagan left two terms, [Cannon] wrote his monumental work on this. But after a year in the Reagan presidency, Lou also wrote a book which I’m sure he doesn’t want remembered, and it was just called “Reagan.” And I got it out, and this is what Lou Cannon said right at this time in the Reagan presidency in 1982, “Reagan was, for all his optimism, running out of time. His reach had exceeded his grasp. Age and events had dimmed a sense of leadership.” Now get this, “By 1982 it was an axiom in the White House that Reagan, like so many of his modern predecessors, would be a one-term president. I believe that Reagan will not run again.”

1982 didn’t matter in 1984, because unemployment was falling and economic growth was surging. Will the economy favor Obama as well? Interestingly, Obama seems to be turning now to Paul Volcker, the same man who Reagan trusted to turn around the economy. Of course, a scandal or a major terrorist attack could also hurt Obama in 2012. The bottom line is this: No matter how badly Democrats are beaten in 2010, 2012 is a whole new ballgame. Just ask Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich.