I’d still rather run against Paul Ryan, but this, from Perry, isn’t so bad either (via Steve M. again):
And there you have it: the vaunted New Deal did not bring the country out of the Great Depression, but the bigger problem now is that its numerous programs never died, and like a bad disease, they have spread. The impact of the New Deal is staggering not just because of the number of programs but also because of their scope. Certain of these programs massively altered the relationship between Americans and their government with respect to critical aspect of our lives, violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles of federalism and limited government.
By far the best example of this is Social Security.
No one is going to be elected president calling Social Security a “bad disease”, not anytime soon.
Now, if you dig into these crosstabs, or whatever all the cool people call the detailed parts of polls, you’ll see Perry with a massive lead over Romney among southerners (39-12). Here you’ll see that nationwide, he leads Romney by 16 points in a two-person match-up. In early March (so pretty early in the primary schedule), a lot of the crazy states hold their primaries, and by then it will down to something closer to a two-person race.
I don’t see Rove peeling off the southern vote for Romney or whoever too easily unless they go nuts and get Jeb Bush in the race. It goes without saying that yankees like Chris Christie and Paul Ryan aren’t going to get it done.
trollhattan
But we gave him the diamonds! (Texas, being a gem of a state and all.)
Violet
The Democrats need to hammer home that all the Republicans want to dismantle the safety net completely. The Democrats won’t do that, of course. But they should.
scav
This diseased socia1ist society brought to you since the mid-30s by The Greatest Generation(TM) and those they nurtured as parents, carefully indoctrinating their offspring into their twisted world-view.
Jenny
Doug, you’re gonna have to buy Parry’s books and read them for yourself. They’re a treasure trove of hi-jinks and comedy.
scav
I mean, I am so really enjoying the image of Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best as windows into a society violently tossing aside foundational principles in pursuit of the hammer and sickle.
RandyH
What always blows me away is that The South has NO ECONOMY and depends on “Gub’mint Handouts” to just get by. (Social Security, SSDI, Medicaid, food stamps, military bases, etc.) There is NO WAY these people could sustain themselves without the welfare programs the rich states subsidize to just keep them barely afloat. Yet when we have President Blackidy Black Black Black, they are willing to bite OFF the very hand that feeds them.
Fools…
General Stuck
Ryan is a rare and delicate northern wingnut flower that wouldn’t last 48 hours in the thunderdome that is a POTUS campaign. Perry is like a burning Mesquite bush with a family of rattle snakes living underneath.
Perry had the nom wrapped up the minute he realized he could stomp his rivals with a single southern shit kick. And the motherfucker will write new rules on dirty trick campaigning, but at the same time, his mouth will be his downfall, in a GE. And I don’t see yet, the GWB trait of being able to surrender his political soul to someone with an evil brain. Like say a Karl Rove.
So there is no chance Ryan could win the GOP nod, even if he wasn’t a chickenshit bag man for the rich. Perry could be dangerous, if he never had to talk to win a GE. So far, that is not doable. My bet is granny has her pitchfork ready, for a tune up on his Goldwater light, New Deal hating arse.
cleek
just remember: there’s no difference between Obama and a Republican.
geg6
I hate say something like this because it’s come back to bite me in the past, but I hope those idiots nominate Perry. Bad enough that he comes off as W2 Electric Bugaloo, but people love them their Social Security. He might actually do worse than Ryan, if only because the Texas shit don’t fly around here.
chopper
i thought mittens was big on trying to shift gears, this fucker’s gonna try to pull a neutral drop.
“oh no, when i said social security and medicare were ‘bad diseases’, meant like ‘pink candy unicorn flu’. you know, the disease that makes you totally hot and rich.”
Jenny
You just have to click on this link to his book and read through it. It’s shocking how he viciously dumps on Social Security.
For example:
Hunter Gathers
And Marco ‘The Great Conservative Hispanic Savior’ Rubio agrees:
Keep fucking that chicken, GOPers.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Obama might not even have to come up with the ads, Romney doesn’t deserve the nod if he doesn’t open up in all the blue and purple states with ‘Rick Perry Wants To Kill Social Security’.
Spaghetti Lee
Personally, at some point, I get sick of gleefully picking out whose gaffes will make them easiest to beat in an election, and just have to say “Fuck these assholes.” Seriously, I’m sick of this warmed-over Randian bullshit even being a part of the conversation, even if the Dems can use it to play rope-a-dope down the road.
Jenny
And he only wrote this shit 9 months.
It would be bad enough if he wrote it twenty years ago, but he just wrote last Thanksgiving.
What a turkey.
SW
This Perry guy is the perfect distillation of the modern Republican party. We should all hope he wins the nomination. And if the current president cannot win a contest of ideas with this fellow then we truly do deserve everything that will follow.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
Stuck, you are a clueless motherfucker.
Whomever gets the Rethug nom is going to hang the goddamned economy around Obama’s neck. It’s going to stick, too.
People are pissed. Obama is at 38% approval. The scapegoat for the blame is sitting in the White House. You are looking at Carter redux…
But keep on whistling past the graveyard you dumbass.
ppcli
@Jenny: It will be fun to watch him try to walk this stuff back. “When I said, “monument to the failure” I, um, meant that in a *good* way. Y’know, the way that the Statue of Liberty is a monument to the failure of anti-Americanism.”
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate:
He beats every GOPer in head to head polling by significant margins.
Jenny
@ppcli: It’s a riot watching trying to explain himself — http://youtu.be/ngiJhmoFKkw
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@WyldPirate:
And he’s still beating Bachmann and Perry handily while staying within the MOE of Romney and Paul.
But keep ratfucking that chicken. Nothing will amuse me more than watching you flail about next summer about how there’s no difference between Obama and Perry.
WyldPirate
@Hunter Gathers:
Similar shit was said about Ronnie Raygun in 1980. What happened then?
2012 is shaping up as a replay. The US elected a double-barreled dumbass in ’80 and’84. Now he the GOP saint. Elected an even bigger dumbass in 2000 and 2004.
Anyone that underestimates the abject stupidity of the American electorate is a fool.
RandyH
@WyldPirate:
You could be right. No doubt the Rebub candidate will run on “are you beter off now than 4 yrs ago?” and stick it to Obama.
But it seems to me that Obama is not running a “Hope and Change” campaign this time around. It’s going to be some of the ugliest scorched-earth shit you’ve ever seen. Just watch.
Who can say who will win. But I think in the end, we’ll all lose.
Peter
@WyldPirate: Oh. It’s you. How have you been? We haven’t missed you.
The economy is the only reason this election is even a race, but unless it turns for the much, much worse, it’s far from a sure thing. Especially if they nominate a clown who is on the record denouncing social security as a disease.
WyldPirate
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
good that it gives you confidence that an incumbent President is “within the margin of error” against the likes of Romney and Ron Paul.
…but it shows that you are a fucking fool….
Jenny
Guys, don’t feed the trolls. Don’t let GOP trolls change the subject from Parry’s attacks on Social Security. That’s what they want.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: Nice to see that getting a job hasn’t brightened your outlook.
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
I saw one today–gallup I think–where Romney beat him by 4%. He led Bachmann by 4%.
Those numbers are way to close for comfort against those two clowns.
aisce
@ wyldpirate
what is the point of you?
shortstop
I swear I read that as feudalism. I was looking for it, I suppose.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
Major analogy fail. In the here and now, the similarity between Reagan and Obama are that they are and were first term presidents seeking reelection. The other similarities are that both had similar poor job approval numbers in a still sluggish economy recovering from recession, and both had excellent, (over 50%) favorables for likeability.
Reagan went on to easily win reelection, and Obama is following the same polling course at this point in time.
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
My outlook is fine.
the county’s outlook on the economy and Obama’s approval is what the problem is.
Keep on with the ad hominems if it distracts you from the real issues that will determine Obama’s re-election chances. I’ll be extra nice and give you a clue as to what it is–how people perceive Obama is being ineffective in dealing with the country’s economic problems.
DonkeyKong
“I wash born here, an I wash raished here, and dad gum it, I am gonna die here, an no sidewindin’ bushwackin’, hornswagglin’ cracker croaker is gonna rouin me bishen cutter.”
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@WyldPirate:
What happened then?
You had an incumbent who couldn’t get rescue hostages from what everyone believed was a third-world country, whose solution to an oil crisis was warm sweaters, whose answer to the invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Summer Olympics, who basically made the late-Brezhnev era Soviet Union look scarily competent, and was so beloved by his own party that Teddy Kennedy – barely a decade removed from Chappaquiddick – made a credible run for the nomination against him.
His opponent was a noted Hollywood actor who had been groomed for this role since 1968, who was a two-term governor of one of the nation’s biggest and most liberal states, and who effectively made his hay by pointing out the Soviets were winning the dick-swinging contest while our answer was warm sweaters.
In other words, Barack Obama has nothing to do with the well-meaning incompetent that was Jimmy Carter, and Rick Perry could only wish he had half the charm and fortune of Ronald Reagan. The only ones who would believe otherwise are those whose only memories of 1980 are from the Ronaldus Magnus Official Coloring Book.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
And you are still a raging whackjob.
Big Baby DougJ
@aisce:
Good question.
WyldPirate
@General Stuck:
No it’s not. Raygun was perceived as an idiot governor when he challanged a sitting President in ’80. That’s not unlike the perception of Perry or Romney by the fools here dreaming that Obama will win in a walk against anyone the Rethugs put up in economic circumstances similar to (or worse) those of 1980.
RandyH
@WyldPirate:
You really are obsessed with this “The Economy is all Obama’s Fault” line, aren’t you?
Go ask Orange Julep, if you can get him off the golf course or wake him from his drunken stupor why his House of Representatives authorizes so much spending and can’t seem to collect the taxes due from the rich who just refuse to pay. C’mon. You think the Repub’s are going to control ANYTHING after the 2012 elections?
Think again.
At least people like Obama personally. They can’t stand the scumbag Koch-whore Republicans. They want ’em gone. Gone. Gone.
Go away, Troll.
Villago Delenda Est
The New Deal may have not done it.
But government spending (MASSIVE government spending) did.
Idiots.
JC
@General Stuck:
may I just say, that is a great paragraph. Well written, sir, my applause!
I hope you are right in that Perry won’t be able to ‘control his mouth’. I think he’s pretty good at taking direction, given the triangulation he team did on the Texas legislature, so I see him being able to pivot to a moderate, once he has sewn up the republican primary.
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: I think the real issue will be how voters perceive Obama vs. the eventual GOP nominee. I don’t think his re-election is a sure thing, but nothing is. I do, however, think that the odds are in his favor. You obviously don’t.
JC
@RandyH:
My concern is that most people just pay attention, and simply vote on how they feel on the economy, and the President gets the credit or blame, depending on how people feel.
that overrides most ‘personality’ issues with individual Republicans.
General Stuck
@WyldPirate:
Sure it is. Now don’t you feel stupid. If you were going to pick and analogy that was at least plausible, you should have picked the Bush One example. Picking Reagan, who was reelected in a landslide, as your example for comparison to Obama, makes you look the fool we always knew you are.
WyldPirate
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Keep telling yourself those “sweet little lies”, The Sherrif’s a Ni-…..After you and your cohorts here are done crying in your beer asking “WTF happened?” after the first week or so in November of next year, I’ll do a search and point to threads like this and do the “I told you so” bit.
WyldPirate
@JC:
Finally, someone with some sense speaks.
Most people don’t have a clue as to what Obama controls. They have no clue that the Rethugs are obstructionist motherfuckers who are rattfucking the country for political gain.
What they do know how to do is blame the Head Motherfucker in Charge sitting in the White House.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@WyldPirate:
No counter argument offered but insults and trolling? Surrender accepted, bitch, now shine my fucking shoes.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Omnes Omnibus: Methinks his bright shiny personality recently lost it for him.
Suffern ACE
@JC: Yeah. I see him being able to throw around read meat while the usual suspects talk about the “Texas Miracle” like they have been for the past year. He won’t have to pivot.
General Stuck
@JC:
Not being familiar with Perry and Texas politics, I guess you could be right, but if he is going to make a pivot, he better have his axle heavy greased, cause it’s a lot of pivot from blubbering about The New Deal being a “disease” that needs a cure. I don’t see it, and think it is too much for him to get anywhere near the center he would need to win. And a Perry as the GOP nominee, will be certain to fire up dems and liberals with his brand of GWB on steroids.
But anything can happen in a race between two people, and usually does. Like a poor hitting pro pitcher, that anyone is a threat that can swing a bat.
Keith G
@RandyH:
I am confused (as usual)
Did WyldP say “The Economy is all Obama’s Fault” or
voters will believe “The Economy is all Obama’s Fault”?
There is a difference.
RandyH
@JC:
Could be. But there are exceptions. And trust me, I have no idea what people will wind up doing more than a year from now. I have trouble predicting what the national concensus will be on anything next week, even.
But I DO think that the incumbent has the best advantage in the case of the President.
People have been trying for three elections now to clear out the congress and they’re never satisfied. They’ll probably do it again this time and I suspect that they’ll get rid of anyone who ever even flirted with the “Tea Party” folks because everyone now knows that those folks are f’ing crazy.
The field of candidates for President could change between now and then and the dynamics of the race could go anywhere, but Obama is probably in better shape than anyone who challenges him. But he needs a good-sized Democratic majority in both houses of Congress to really do much. So maybe it doesn’t matter who wins. We’re all screwed either way.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Keith G:
I think voters will care less about fault and more ‘who the fuck is going to fix this mess’.
James E. Powell
If the Democrats do decide to hammer that home, they better not call it the safety net. To the vast majority of Americans, terms like ‘safety net’ are but a little removed from ‘welfare.’ Almost all believe that ‘safety net’ is the money spent on people other than themselves.
JC
Despite the unnecessary viciousness of WyldPirate, some political science facts:
For an incumbent President to be polling where Obama is right now, and in ‘even matchup’s with his (almost unknown) political opponents, well, it really is very bad news. I wouldn’t bet on Obama if the polling in late October is what it shows up today, because people usually ‘break’ against their dissatisfaction, and THAT IS similar to Carter/Reagan.
However, if Perry is elected, I expect a couple of intangibles to really effect in a good way, the bad economics: Bush fatique (another Bush???), and I count on the Obama team to point out daily just how DANGEROUS it would be to Social Security, medicare, science, etc, to elect this clown.
Hopefully, that, and Obama’s personal likability can counteract the bad economic news enough so that Obama wins.
WyldPirate
@Omnes Omnibus:
I can appreciate that argument and agree with it, OO. But I was surprised that you reached for the ad hom right out of the gate.
JC
@General Stuck: From your pixels to God’s ears.
WyldPirate
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Keith G
@JC: Now please do not cloud the B-J essence with your “political science facts”.
It will cause headaches.
WyldPirate
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
Why bother offering a counter-argument to a pile of shit posing as an argument?
Arclite
Here’s what scares me though. Grandma voted for Reagan back in the day because, “He looked good on TV.” I’m afraid that a lot of low info voters might make the same choice. Not that Barack doesn’t look good on TV…
JC
At any rate, the more important question is, GIVEN the rethugs are willing to raise taxes (payroll tax), just to tank the economy even more, what are the ways that the campaign team can minimize the damage from a recessionary economy?
Myself, I think it’s a zero sum game – there is either a winner or a loser.
I think the campaign is going to need to go full negative – Harry Truman – on the ‘obstructionist, do nothing’ Republicans.
And THAT is something that we, as fire breathing BJ’ers CAN do.
WE can tell everyone we know – ‘Perry’s policies will destroy this county, starting with Social Security and medicare’, and send out Perry quotes and ravings, endlessly, unashamedly, to everyone who you have ever known.
Unashamedly, become a ‘the sky is falling’ Perry alarmist.
EDIT: Because, I, for one, will be very very scared for this country, if a dominionist Xtian governor, who lacks abasic respect for science, has already promised to take an axe to SS – right there in his book – gets the nod. SCREAM that this guy is very very dangerous, and the only thing you can do is vote for the ‘lesser evil’. (the speech to give to those who don’t like Obama, validate their dislike, but point out that the other guy wants to kill grandmother.)
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: You came in swinging. Besides, it wasn’t really an ad hom; it was more of a casual insult.
Omnes Omnibus
@JC:
It is still 2011.
General Stuck
It is false to claim that Obama’s current job approval numbers is a bad harbinger to come for his possible reelection.
.
And from a certifiable PUMA blog, that has been suitably scrubbed of Obotism and it’s devilish bias.
JC
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, that is why the ‘IF’, in that sentence.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@JC:
I don’t think its really as bad as it might seem. You’d have to have a couple years as spectacularly bad as Carter’s ’79 and ’80 to make the comparison work. For comparison, by this point in his administration, Jimmy was at 32/54, after bottoming out at 28/59 a month and a half earlier. Obama, meanwhile, just found the wrong side of 40 and that was after the debt ceiling mess. He’s still polling better than the Republican base.
Like I said up earlier, Carter was in over his head. Everyone knew it. As 1980 wore on, it only became even more glaringly obvious I don’t get the feeling that there’s this huge groundswell for believing the same about Obama.
The thing is I really don’t think he’s invincible, precisely because we’re an impatient bunch who are tapping our feet while waiting to party like its 1995. I think if you can blur the lines enough between Obama and the other guy I think it gives the GOP a chance. The GOP’s problem is the only guy who could blur those lines for them would honk off the fundies and Tea Party. They’re looking for the 2000 version of George W. Bush, or at the least put up a Hollywood actor who can make people feel good about themselves, but there’s nobody matching that description in the bullpen.
JC
@General Stuck: Actually Stuck, those numbers ARE bad news. Political science would say that both Reagan and Clinton erased those even numbers, because of a RISING ECONOMY.
Carter didn’t, because the economy was NOT getting a lot better (not that it was bad, but not the improvements of 1984,1996).
If the economy does get a lot better, I think all of us would agree, barring catastrophe, Obama has the election in the bag.
It’s what to do, how to proceed, for Obama to win, if there is still a suffering economy, that is cause for concern.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes it is, and my concern is that this team of politicians tend to wait to join the fray later than others do, thereby allowing a lot of the vocabulary of the debate to be already set by the opposition.
Tom Q
Okay, I get tired of posting the same things all the time, but Wyld Pirate and his ilk keep spreading the same semi-true-but-misleading bilge, so…
It is factual that presidential elections turn more on public perception of the incumbent’s performance than on simple head-to-head between candidates. But it is NOT a fact that voters decide 100% based on the economy. The unemployment rate on Election Day 1984 was — are you ready for this? — IDENTICAL to what it was on the same day four years earlier. Yet Carter was swamped, and Reagan was coronated. So there’s obviously more to re-election than the simple economic situation.
For months now I’ve been urging people to read Lichtman’s 13 Keys to the Presidency. He makes an excellent case — based on analyzing every election since the establishment of two-party hegemony — that elections are decided on a broad range of issues, one (actually two of his Keys) being the economy. The problem for Carter in 1980 was that, in addition to a souring economy that Fall (in fact, actual recession), he had no charisma, an ongoing foreign policy fiasco, a punishing intraparty challenge, and no significant accomplishments. Reagan, by contrast, Lichtman had projected as the likely ’84 winner even at this point in ’83, when his numbers were roughly as bad as Obama’s now, based on the fact that he had charisma, had changed the direction of the country, increased his party’s representation in the House, avoided foreign policy problems or intra-party challenge.
The Obama naysayers want to think Barack is more like Carter, but, in fact, General Stuck is right: he’s far closer to Reagan in profile. He has charisma, major accomplishments, the foreign policy triumph of catching bin Laden; he won’t be challenged by any other Dem. As of now, he’s only lost 2 of the 6 necessary Keys to lose — and for him to lose another on the economy, we would have to go back into active recession. Lichtman says it would require an historic reversal of fortune for him to lose next year.
Read his book and see what you think. It’s alot more edifying than listening avidly to a bunch of meaningless polls for the next 15 months. Or believing the unemployment rate is the only thing that matters on Election Day.
Socraticsilence
@WyldPirate: Bschmann will go down fast the more she is exposed the same is true for Perry, Romney is literally the only GOP’r with a chance in hell and he’s going to be forced to destroy said chance to win the nomination.
Socraticsilence
@WyldPirate: Bschmann will go down fast the more she is exposed the same is true for Perry, Romney is literally the only GOP’r with a chance in hell and he’s going to be forced to destroy said chance to win the nomination.
JC
@Tom Q:
All of those are very good points, in terms of differences between Obama and Carter.
I think the ‘perception of improvement’ is the thing/question. Reagan – or more accurately, his aides – engineered the recession early in Reagan’s term. So, by the time of the election, there was marked improvement in the situation from earlier – good news was coming in from all directions.
In Lichtman’s book, are all ‘keys’ equally weighted? Or does the perception of a bad economy weigh more?
EDIT: Also, as much as you’ve posted this prior, I hadn’t seen any reference to Lichtman, so my appreciation for doing it again.
General Stuck
@JC:
We can’t know what the future will bring between now and election day. And you can’t read the future, to say that the economy will not improve just enough for Obama to win.
The point I am making, that is clear, that it is too early to put any stock in either Obama’s approval numbers and him being doomed, or even less likely to win
And given the poor GOP field of candidates, I don’t think the economy will have to get “a lot better”, just be moving in a better direction for the next year. If it stays bad, or gets worse, then there is real trouble, even with a Perry for a opponent. But likeability goes a long way, and Obama has plenty of that in his favorables polling.
But I have never said Obama would win by any other way than close, since that is the tribal state of our politics, and has been for a long time, if not forever.
Socraticsilence
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Seriously, the Foriegn Policy stuff alone makes it impossible to turn Obama into Carter- Obama did what the GOP dreamed of he killed Bin Laden, helped depose Gaddafi and by December will have basically gotten us out of Iraq- if you want to use a one termer who lost as a comparision at least have the courtesy to use Bush I.
johnnybegood
I’m not convinced that Americans won’t vote for Parry because of his opposition to Social Security. White seniors vote Republican. Young adults are complaining about how their generation is being stuck with a massive national debt.
I can see Parry winning. If George Bush can win because he’s the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with (and because Gore is fat), then Parry can win because he jogs with a gun.
grandpajohn
Before we all get excited here about that Gallup poll, has anyone seen the crosstabs for it. Because frankly without knowing the break down on who was polled, that poll is as worthless as a used piece of toilet paper
JC
@Socraticsilence:
It would be interesting to use Lichtman’s 13 keys, and see if it had any analytical predictive power in the case of H.W. Bush. Certainly, the recession was shallow, and the situation had begun to improve.
Clinton was of course, much more telegenic/charismatic. One of the ‘keys’ in Clinton’s favor.
Keith G
@JC: I am thinking that comparisons to Bush 1 may be strained by some of the unique factors facing him at that time, 1) “Reagan era” fatigue, 2) Ross Periot, 3) Pat Buchanan and the culture war speech at the convention.
Just thoughts.
Tom Q
@JC: Lichtman doesn’t weigh any Key more heavily than another, but he does have two economic Keys, long term and short, and he also assumes that real economic failure will lead to the loss of other Keys — e.g., the oil-driven malaise of 1980 probably made the Kennedy challange more successful than it might have been, and the lingering recession in ’91-’92 probably helped create the Perot third-party movement.
Obama has already lost the long term economy Key — as Reagan did in ’84. What you and General Stuck both mention is what will determine the short term Key: the direction of the economy over the next year or so. I know the punditocracy takes for granted that we’re headed down and staying there, but people whose judgment I respect see it the way I do: that the economy had begun to improve in late 2010 — starting to produce private sector jobs, enough to lower the unemployment rate by a full percentage point — but we were hit by a triple whammy of massive state job cuts, spiking oil prices and the multiple disasters in Japan (maybe throw in the idiotic uncertainty over the debt limit, as well). All those things are now past (oil prices have declined sharply), so it’s entirely possible the economy will grow at a moderate level by early next year — maybe not Reagan ’84-, but Bush ’04-like. If it does that, the short term economic Key is secure, and the GOP will be running against a still well-liked guy with a strong record, and the country’s growing demographics on his side. Throw in a far-right candidate like Perry, and I could see Obama winning by a wider margin than ’08.
Tom Q
For the record, Lichtman’s verdict on Bush I was that he’d lost Key 1 (lower party representation in the House), Key 4 (serious third-party activity) Key 6 (long term economy), Key 7 (no major policy change), Key 12 (no charisma), and that, though the country was technically out of recession in ’92, unemployment claims continuing above 400,000 a week through the summer caused Key 5 (short term economy) to fall. Lichtman is for some reason stubborn about granting the charisma Key to living Democrats, so he didn’t grant Clinton that, though it’s disputable — putting Bush at the exact 6 Keys he needed to lose.
If you’re interested in the full set, Bush held onto Key 2 (no intra-party challenge — Buchanan inflicted too little primary damage), Key 3 (incumbency), Key 8 (no scandal), Key 9 (no social unrest — though the LA riots that year made it iffy), and both foreign policy Keys (success in Kuwait, avoiding failure).
James E. Powell
@Keith G:
Bush I also had to run against Bill Clinton. In addition to his considerable political gifts, he was the first candidate the baby boom could call its own.
JC
Here is the link to the Keys.
I still bet that Key 5 and 6 have a higher percentage than some of the others, because of various political science research, but still, it’s an interesting take.
Since I like games like these, I’ll rate the following:
Key 1 – Republican candidate
Key 2 – Obama
Key 3 – Obama
Key 4 – Obama (likely)
Key 5 – Republican candidate (conservative assumption)
Key 6 – Republican candidate
Key 7 – Obama
Key 8 – Obama – so far
Key 9 – Obama – so far
Key 10 – Obama – so far
Key 11 – Obama
Key 12 – Obama
Key 13 – Republican – for purposes of argument, though most likely Obama has this key as well.
This is good news for John McCain! (heh)
Myself, I would rate Obama as capturing 6-7 keys, and then barring mishap, most likely 9-10. Losing only 3-4. I say three, since I think Obama would win Key 13.
Of course, two of those are the economy, which in normal poli-sci has a much bigger impact.
Jamie
One of my many gripes about politics in America is that most of those polled know nothing about either candidate.
Jamie
and we will bat these numbers around as if they actually mean something. It reminds me of the dog in Up.
Tom Q
@JC: Mostly agree, and that’s why I say the standard take, among the naysayers and punditariat, is wrong: it’s not that the economy is going to kill Obama; it’s that ONLY the economy is preventing it from being a blowout for him. If the economy is clearly not in recession next year, I don’t see the GOP having a prayer.
As for the poli sci models relying on pure economics: that guy Ray Fair I recall wildly miscalled the ’92 election (I think he had Bush winning by double digits). Economics matter, of course. But I think Lichtman makes a good case it’s more than that.
jefft452
Another factor is that Perry is a “Republican Governor”
How many voters in Ohio or Florida are going to think Perry = Kasich or Scott
Kyle
Yes, especially programs like the TVA and rural electrification where the rest of the country subsidized dragging inbred sisterfucking hick regions, like Rick Perry’s hometown, kicking and screaming into the 20th century. You’re welcome.
Jenny
How old are you guys?
All this talk about Carter, some one who left office before MTV started.
Do you guys populate tech blogs and argue about Pacman and Pong?
According to the census, only 31% of today’s population was old enough to vote in 1980. And yet, time after time, blogs keep rerunning the 1980 election.
At some point it’s time to buy a new board game.
Tom Q
@Jenny: We’re better than the press, for whom every year is 1972, or 1968.
It does help to know history when making presidential predictions. But, as we’ve been discussing here, it’s easy to misuse that history if one only knows a small part of it.
slightly-peeved
How often has either party nominated someone who dry-humps the third rail (in a totally straight way of course, like a cowboy would) like Rick Perry? While I think the press sometimes places too much importance on single statements by a candidate, stating that you will punch every single old person in the face if elected could have a little effect that the larger models wouldn’t account for. Especially in Florida.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“And there you have it: the vaunted New Deal did not bring the country out of the Great Depression,”
From 1933 to 1941 real GDP growth *averaged* 8% p.a.
St. Ronaldus never matched that in any one of his years.