Oh my, thank you for my belly laugh of the day. Presidents usually get too much blame (or conversely, too much credit) for the nation’s economy, but not much has happened during Obama’s term to give room for optimism.
We would have had a depression if not for the Stimulus. You’re welcome.
The normal calculus about the economy is altered because of the context. He inherited an economy in free fall, stopped it from hitting rock bottom an got it started back on its way to soem kind of recovery (not as much as if he had rolled back the Bush tax giveaways to the rich, but it’s something). Furthermore, the Republicans have no plans or ideas to bring back jobs themselves except to give more money to the rich and take away even more power from the working class.
And with the particular field of GOP candidates Obama is facing right now, he practically doesn’t even have to campaign. The likes of Sarah Palin are doing it for him.
This is how elections are won, and that was my point - it has less and less to do with one’s personal affection for a candidate.
He has a history with China, and it’s not very tricky at all. Not with the American public.
I do believe the theme of the Democrats is, “GOP sucks!”, so it’s not new.
I didn’t say it was about personal affection. Eight or 12 years ago it was easier to bridge the gap between some of those different Republican groups. Bush did it - primarily by telling the religious conservatives what they wanted to hear and then doing what the pro-business groups wanted, I suppose. In 2008 all the nominees struggled with it. McCain pulled it off but by then he couldn’t pull in a lot of moderates. In the last couple of years, the far right has made more and more demands. At this point, pretty much any compromise with Democrats (like Romney’s health care plan or some of Pawlenty’s moves) has to be denounced as a mistake.
I didn’t say his history with China was the issue. Huntsman resigned from the governorship of Utah to spend two years working for the Obama administration. How is that going to help him with Republican primary voters who think the Obama administration is terrible?
If I had to make a guess, it would be that Huntsman isn’t seriously seeking the nomination in this cycle. He’s trying to establish himself on the national stage in preparation for a real run in 2016, gambling that the rabid right will wear itself down in the meantime and leave the way open for a more moderate Republican.
His current relatively low-key approach and, especially, his ambassadorial endeavors seem to make more sense in that light. He’s looking to establish name recognition without drawing too much fire from the rest of the field. He doesn’t want them digging up dirt on him yet, and if he doesn’t look like much of a threat, they’ll likely fight each other instead. Serving as an ambassador deals him a “foreign affairs experience” card to play later, when it’s no longer quite so important who he was working for at the time.
But Republicans don’t disagree with our foreign policy relationship with China.
So? He worked with Obama, and pretty much all the Republican campaigns are currently focused on how bad our current President is. You really think the average voter is looking at this with any more detail than that?
No, the themes of the Democrats are “Reduce dependence on oil”, and “Put a price tag on carbon emissions”, and “Expand health care coverage for all Americans”, and “Reduce foreign military involvements”, and “Provide civil rights for everyone”. We’re not just reflexively opposing whatever comes from the other side of the aisle; we’re giving actual ideas for where and how to move forward.
The real independants (not the teabagger type) who are so frustrated still need to be convinced that a Republican could do something better. It’s not as simple as “well, this guy ain’t working, time to give someone from the other side a shot at it again.” Pubs need a real working plan. Something they’ve failed to yet produce.
As ambassador to China, though. It’s not like he was involved in domestic policy, or even foreign policy that Republican primary voters don’t like. If anything is going to hurt him, it’s that the Mormon thing is going to affect him the same way it does Romney, and that he’s still not very well known, neither of which is fatal.
They don’t? Did you notice what Donald Trump was saying about China when he was pretending to consider running for president? I don’t think Republican primary voters are happy about the relationship between the U.S. and China or China’s holding of U.S. debt (often portrayed in the media as “China owns us!”). It would be unfair to blame all that on Huntsman and I’m not saying he’s responsible, but I think it’s something that would hurt him in the primaries. I think it’s plausible that he is setting himself up for 2016, like Balance says.
Yeah, he’s much more plausible for 2016. Even aside from the current Republican knee-jerk aversion to Obama, ultimately in a race you need to run against your opponent. There’s no plausible way for Huntsman to run against Obama when he was was a part of his administration. In 2016, though, he’ll be able to claim credit for anything that’s perceived as good about Obama, while at the same time distinguishing himself from whomever the Democrats run.
I would say polls are pretty meaningless this far out…
Let’s not forget, 2007 polls had the race down to a Guliani v. Hillary race. Obama was obscure and McCain was declared dead just like people are declaring Newt dead today. (Although I think Newt really is dead!)
Lots of twists and turns can happen, candidates can fall flat on their faces, etc.
Let’s review why we didn’t get that 2008 matchup.
Rudy Guiliani decided to diss the early primary states and concentrate on later primaries. He had a legit point. Why do New Hampshire and Iowa get to select the final few choices? But that’s the system, and by the time it was over, The “Hero of 9/11” was running behind Ron Paul. Romney spent a lot of money in Iowa, but the Crazy Baptists wouldn’t vote for a Mormon. Huckabee terrified the crap out of business types who really run the GOP. Fred Thompson proved he sounds like an idiot when Dick Wolf isn’t writing dialog for him. So all they were left with was McCain, who was somewhat credible.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side. I’m going to say this, the country would have been better off if Hillary had become president instead of Obama. But Hillary had made the mistake of voting for the Iraq war, and the party’s fringe never forgave her for it. Hillary also made a bunch of tactical mistakes, the biggest of which was having no strategy or organization past Super Tuesday. As of Super-Tuesday, she had more committed delegates than Obama. But then those later, southern primaries came along, with lots of African Americans and young people voting, and that gave Obama the edge.
World’s longest aside over, what does this say about this outlying poll? It says that people are willing to give someone a chance.
The interesting thing is that in this poll, they are willing to consider an alternative. People are very nervous about this economy. While he beats Pawlenty, Palin and Huntsman, he barely breaches 50%.
I remember Democrats started saying Bush was done more than two years out, on this forum it was accepted fact that Bush was a one term President. I’ve always said very little in the polling matters until September or October of the general election. Especially if it’s a moderately close race. McCain was always behind in the polls, but not behind by massive amounts, a moderate wind change in a different direction and he could have won. Likewise, Kerry was close enough with Bush (and of course Democrats were heavily pushing any poll showing a Kerry victory) that it would have taken a small shift in public opinion and Kerry would have been President. Since elections are really decided by that small portion of voters who are truly willing to change their mind, in a few key states, it’s folly to think polling this far out means anything.
I will say the same thing about Obama that I said about Bush in 2004. For Obama to lose a candidate has to be selected that can beat Obama. I do not think Kerry was ever that candidate versus Bush. I don’t really think any of the current GOP front runners stand a chance against Obama 1-v-1. It’s really irrelevant how much approval/disapproval Obama has in his job performance, what actually matters is how he stacks up against the other option. That’s why Kerry lost to Bush, not because people thought Bush was doing a great job (his ratings were 48% approve/47% disapprove in the last approval ratings prior to the 2004 election) but because they didn’t think Kerry would do a better job.
The Presidency cannot be vacant, in a business if someone is doing a god awful job you can fire them and open up recruitment. With the Presidency you have to decide “is this guy so bad I want him out, and is the other guy going to do better?” Incumbency is a strong force because unless a candidate is above and beyond, super compelling, most people know what they are getting with the sitting President and are hesitant to change. Aside from Carter most incumbents that lost in the 20th century lost because “something out of the ordinary” happened. (Major third party candidate, pardoning Nixon, being blamed for the Great Depression, a former President running and splitting your side…)
Martin- Actually, Carter had a major third party candidate as well, his name was John Anderson, and he got about10% of the vote that probably would have went to Carter normally.
In the five cases where incumbants lost, four of them had major inter-partry challenges, three of them had third party challenges.
The one where a guy had support of his party but lost anyway was Herbert Hoover, and what did him in was the economy.
The problem is, businesses have no reason to really hire right now. sales are flat and they’ve found ways to operate with the people they have. If you need to invest in more production, you go overseas. (Thanks, idiot trade treaties.)
The downside is long term, that isn’t recovery.
From Wall Street’s perspective, they’ve already had a recovery. They’ve gotten back most of what they lost in the crash, they are paying their guys huge bonuses again. On main street, not so much. The ironic thing is, there is an increasing disconnect between the GOP and Wall Street of late. Wall Street has decided they can live with Obama, but the GOP wants him gone.
Nitpick: Every President and presidential candidate since Washington has had a major inter-party challenge. You meant to say intra-party.
I would argue Reagan didn’t in '84.
Monroe also genuinely didn’t in 1820–the Monroe Presidency commonly being called the “era of good feelings.” Much of the country was united under a very big-tent Democratic-Republican party which fractured irreparably after the end of Monroe’s Presidency.
Ah, right, I forgot about Monroe. Reagan '84, though, I guess it depends on your definition of “major”. I expect that up until Election Day, Reagan and his campaign staff did treat the challenge as serious.
Anderson was a Republican, and actually was in the Republican primaries with Reagan and GHW Bush before going the Independant route. His votes came mostly from Republicans.
Anderson was a Republican, but he chipped away at the liberal base Carter counted on. That was before liberal Republicans became an extinct species along with conservative democrats.
WIthout anderson in the race, Carter could have made more of a race out of it… He’d have still lost, though.