SNL Spoofs Romney and Christie

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Is There A Chance Obama Won’t Seek Another Term?

The folks at Hillbuzz say Chicago politicos think the President won’t run for reelection.

Of course, Hillbuzz would like that because it would create a lot of Hillary buzz.

Here’s their reasoning:

The Obama cultists in the Media keep insisting “there’s no way Obama doesn’t win re-election”, and the Cocktail Party GOP defeatists pick up their usual Eeyore cues from that and essentially seem geared to give up before the 2012 election even begins, but I keep coming back to something a good friend of mine asked me the other day that I honestly didn’t have an answer for.

She posed this question — which I invite you to answer in comments below:  ”Have you ever heard anyone who didn’t vote for Obama in 2008 wish they could go back and vote for him now, after seeing him as president?”.

This is a new take on what we hear a lot, that people who voted for Obama, now unhappy with his job performance, wish they could go back in time and not vote for him. This feeling seems to be widespread now that a good deal of the hopeychange Kool-Aid has expired.

But, have you honestly ever heard ANYONE say that “I didn’t vote for him in 2008, but he’s done such a good job I wish I had known better and can’t wait to vote for him in 2012″?

The tea leaves that HillBuzz are reading come from David Axelrod and the First Lady:

It might seem incredible that Obama would just walk away from the presidency, leaving Democrats in the lurch for 2012, but I was told, repeatedly, to watch what David Axelrod and Michelle Antoinette have both been doing in recent weeks…they give no signs whatsoever that they are engaged in a re-election campaign.

Axelrod was recently on a Chicago Sunday political show and kept dodging all talk of the re-election campaign, which is like Oprah Winfrey turning down a large supreme pizza or a sandwich bigger than her head.  It’s unheard of.

Axelrod’s favorite topic in the world is how he got Obama elected president, which means Axelrod’s second favorite topic in the world should be how he is going to re-elect Obama in 2012.  He left the White House claiming that’s why he was moving back to Chicago, to focus on the re-election bid, and when given the perfect opportunity to wax on about that, and praise himself and his efforts, he completely dodged the topic, wanting nothing to do with it.  Why?

Pressed by the reporter, Axelrod apparently said “the president’s re-election is just one of the interesting projects I am working on”.  What could be peer, in terms of being interesting, to re-electing a president if you are a political consultant?  Chicago political veterans picked up on this and saw it as a sign that those in the Obama ranks either do not believe he will win in 2012, or that he won’t even run, largely because of the former.

Then there was Michelle Antoinette on Good Morning America last Thursday or Friday, wearing something hideous as usual, also downplaying the re-election campaign and dodging questions about her involvement in it.  This, too, is strange because Michelle Antoinette has always loved talking about how influential, powerful, and generally wonderful she (thinks she) is.

Like Axelrod, Michelle Antoinette poo-poohed the re-election talk, not taking the opportunity to go on about how much her husband deserved a second term to keep doing whatever it is all day, the end results of which the American people clearly hate.

She had a very “one and done” attitude about living in the White House for Obama’s term, and people here in Chicago who know her said that she was in particularly bad spirits after returning to DC from Hawaii, because she just didn’t want to ever leave and resents having to spend any time at all in DC.

Hat tip to Uncoverage for the Hillbuzz piece.

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2012: Will history be made or repeat itself?

By Art Gallagher

With Repubican Randy Altschuler’s concession on Tuesday to incumbent Congressman Tim Bishop in New York’s 1st congressional district, the 2010 midterm elections have come to a close.  Republicans picked up 63 seats while taking control of the House of Representatives, and picked up 6 seats in the U.S. Senate.

The 2010 midterms have frequently been compared to the 1994 midterms when Newt Gingrich lead the House GOP to pick up 54 seats, while Republicans picked up 8 U.S. Senate seats and controlled both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954.

With the midterms behind us pundits and political junkies are shifting their focus to the 2012 Presidential election. Many have pondered whether President Obama will move to the center ala Bill Clinton after the massive loss in the ’94 midterms, “triangulating” Republicans, Independents and their issues on his way to a scandal plaqued second term, or will Obama finish out his term like Jimmy Carter, dogged by a stagflation economy, unrest in the Middle East and challenged by the left in his own party.

My friend Alan Steinberg argues that Obama’s recent deal with Congressional Republicans to extend the Bush-era tax rates for two years ehances the President’s reelection prospects because of the likely improvement in the economy that will result.  Steinberg says that the far left wing of the Democratic party condeming Obama for the deal will also help him by making him look like a centrist. Steinberg says an Obama primary victory over a left wing opponent like Howard Dean would boost the President further with an aura of success and centrism.

Alan overlooks the historical fact that every incumbent President since Gerald Ford who faced a credible primary challenge won the primary but lost the general election.  Ford was challenged by Ronald Reagan in the 1976 GOP primary and lost the election to Jimmy Carter.  Carter was challenged in the 1980 Democratic party by Ted Kennedy and lost the election to Reagan.   George H.W. Bush was challenged by Pat Buchanan in the 1992 GOP primary and lost the election to Bill Clinton.

Taxes could well be the issue that dominates the 2012 election.  Just as George H.W. Bush’s broken “NO NEW TAXES” pledge cost him dearly with the Republican base that never revered him like they did Reagan, Obama’s broken pledge to raise taxes on the rich and redistribute wealth could yet cost him dearly with his Democratic base.  Just as Bush I was no Reagan, Obama may prove to be no Clinton. Clinton, despite moving away from his leftist base,  “felt their pain” in 1996. So far Obama’s message to “the professional left” is “you are a pain.”

Should a Democrat like Dean or Hillary Clinton really become a pain and challenge Obama in the primary he or she might argue that the Clinton era tax increases on the wealthy lead to a booming ecomony, the first balanced federal budget in memory and even a surplus. 

Of course such a Democrat will ignore the fact that the Clinton 1993 tax increases did not boost the economy as Democrats had expected it would.  The “Clinton boom” and balanced budgets didn’t occur until after 1997 when the Republican Congress lowered  the capital gains tax rates, added a child credit, lowered the death tax and increased the IRA exclusions.

There is another development on the horizon that might make the 2012 election look more like ’92 when Bill Clinton defeated Bush I, than like ’96 when Clinton was reelected over Bob Dole or like 1980 when Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg might end up the 2012 version of H. Ross Perot, the billionaire businessman who ran for President as a third party candidate against Bush I and Clinton in 1992, capturing 19% of the popular vote, and many think Bush I a second term. 

Bloomberg sounded an a lot like a presidential candidate yesterday when he bashed both major political parties, Washington gridlock and offered a “centrist way” to fix America.  Perot built the Reform Party in 1996.  Bloomberg would embrace the No Labels movement of centrists that has been building a grassroots organization over the last year. No Labels will have a major event, their “official launch,” in New York of all places on Monday December 13.  The event will be simulcast in the Internet on Monday December 13.

The other factor making 2012 look like 1996 in my crystal ball is the Republican field of Presidential contenders. So far only New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has the charisma of a Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or candidate Obama.  Christie says he’s not running.  I believe him. He will have his hands full in New Jersey in 2011, making the kind of national travel throughout the year that would be required to compete in the GOP primaries that start in February of 2012 very unlikely.  The rest of the  Republican field doesn’t have “it.”  They are reminiscent of Bush I, Bob Dole and John McCain.

In a head to head race of Obama vs a current Republican contender other than Christie, Obama would have to be favored at this point, assuming he keeps moving to the center.   If Bloomberg runs as a No Labels candidate and spends the $1.5 billion that has been speculated, history could be made rather than repeated.

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