Senate [In-Depth Discussion] United States presidential election: 2012

That's the first time "Tim Pawlenty" has ever appeared in the same sentence as "shine".

 

Maybe it also be the last.

 

Obama neutralized the Republicans on the birther issue, and then he neutralized them on the War On Terror all in the space of a few days. And look how quickly Obama parachuted into Manhattan to capitalize and build on his new status as "Mr. 9/11." making it clear how he's now earned the right to visit our holiest of shrines. He can now look the firefighters in the eye and kiss the fatherless children of former WTC employees. The iconography is striking. And Bush declines an invitation, too, so the passing of the "Mr 9/11" crown is official.

More important than where Obama stands in the polls is whether Republicans can ever campaign against him on any hawkish foreign policy issue. They can't hammer him for being soft on Pakistan, can't bully him about his commitment to Afghanistan or his failure to intervene to help the "Arab Spring." He is a George Bush foreign policy clone and no Republican candidate will ever be able to argue otherwise.

All that's left for the Republicans to do is use the budget process to try to kick the legs out from under our stagnant economy and make sure we're still suffering from high unemployment on election day. It shouldn't be very hard.

 

But why would they want to? Let's review.

We're still deployed in Iraq
We're still deployed in Afghanistan
We have an additional "Go West!" conflict in Libya
The NSA's wiretapping program is firmly in place
Gitmo is filled to the brim with detainees
"enhanced interrogations" helped find bin Laden,
who ended up being shot in the head to solve the issue
Military Tribunals are currently thriving away from prying eyes
The defense department's budget just got increased 5 billion dollars,
while social support agencies saw a comparable decrease
green energy is barely getting lip service and resource guzzling subsidies aren't going away
Gun Control is dead and buried


I suppose the only "democratic issue" that Obama has given any credence to so far is health care reform, but it has about a 50/50 shot from being repealed, and the final watered down version didn't make either side happy. Otherwise, in most cases, Obama has out-republicaned most of the named republicans who currently serve in government. Instead of personifying change from Bush, Obama took up Bush's legacy and showed him how he should have been remembered. I'd wager that if Obama took a page out of Lieberman's playbook, and actually switched to declaring himself as an independent or even an outright republican, he would probably shoot up to 90% approval rating, leaving only conspiracy theorists and the hippies on the coasts, but those groups have been marginalized anyway.

The issues that are left for the election are immigration, the economy, and terrorist blow back. I can't see immigration being taken up, so it leaves two left. If there's terrorist retaliation for bin Laden's death, I'd wager that it would reset the "bump" gained from killing him. But then again, if that happened, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama ordered the military to embark on a multiple country orgy of violence and destruction for revenge. Obama is probably the only President who would be able to use nuclear weapons old school style and get back a wink-wink, nudge-nudge in return... Economic issues/employment/debt are the most visible and the most game changing. Although linked, they're all more of a "who is in the right place at the right time" poker game type of issue for both Obama and any challenger, so we'll have to see.

The only other hiccup that might be on the horizon is that all the important members of Obama's administration are not going to be following him if he gets a second term. Clinton, Gates, etc.. will all have to be replaced with new people, which means from the standpoint of continuity, Obama won't really have the luxury of a second term, but he's going to be subjected to more like 2 first terms.

 

Too early to tell who will win in 2012, 6 months is a lifetime in politics.

 

Wait, does this mean Mr44 would possibly vote for Obama?

Okay, this forum is starting to freak me out. I'm officially creeped out now.

 

Man, I cannot believe that the death of Osama bin Laden at American hands has somehow made you more pessimistic.




Mr44, I'm just going to put my comments in green.

 

In the short term, coming out of the closet as a neocon may help Obama win some leverage over House Republicans and could even help save them from some of their stupidity, like trying to repeal post 2008 financial regulatory reform.

 

I was going to say the other day that instead of being a Secret Muslim, that maybe Obama is a Secret Republican.

 

Wait, does this mean Mr44 would possibly vote for Obama?

Nope. Even though Obama turned out the opposite of the liberal dream team, I would not vote for him on principle, if for no other reason than how he treated his constituents back in Illinois. He never did anything particularly dynamic, he flew below the radar, and quite frankly, he wasted the positions he was in at the time. Obama basically used and abused Illinois until he got what he personally wanted, and I can't support that type of behavior. Obama has always been the political Eddie Haskel, from Leave it to Beaver. He acts one way in private, but then acts a totally different way when the "adults" are around. There's nothing in how he acts that has thus far changed my mind.

Now, for example, Dick Durbin is IL's current ranking Senator and is a democrat. Even though Durbin legislates many things that I disagree with, if Durbin ran for President, I would vote for him in a heartbeat because I respect him and I'm glad he represents IL. There's a famous quote which basically says "those who are most deserving of office, are those who won't ever run for it." Obama is the exact opposite of that quote.

But the one thing I will applaud him for is running a shrewd, textbook campaign back in 2008. He told the voting public what they wanted to hear and got enough people to buy onto the expectation he sold that he won the office that he coveted so much. Cynically, we all know that the point of a campaign isn't honesty, but to sell oneself, and his team was the best at what they did.

I do think that he's going to have a tougher go this time around. Before, he could hide behind a lack of a public record. Now, his record is going to be dissected 6 ways til Sunday. His re-election is still his to loose, but he's not going to be able to dictate the terms, and is going to start on the defensive. His major weakness is dealing with unknown and/or spontaneous situations because he cedes control. If there is an opponent that capitalizes on that, then I think he is going to have a difficult time.

 

^ Well, I can at least sleep at night again.

Well, (surprise, surprise) I was thoroughly unimpressed with last night's candidates. I thought the moderators were great, especially Juan Williams. Perfect questions, disappointing/frustrating answers. The candidates barely exchanged remarks with each other, and nobody stepped up to attack Mitt Romney.

Like LtNowis pointed out, Herman Cain is permanently crippled by having "Frm. Godfather's Pizza CEO" appear under his name every time he speaks. It cuts from "Frm. Governor", "Frm. Senator" or "House Rep" to something about pizza. Even if his message is good, people will psychologically dismiss him. Or stop paying attention to look up the phone number for pizza delivery. I'd say last night his message wasn't good, especially on taxes. He was way too wonky and his answers went right over my head.

Gary Johnson isn't going to last. He was boring, awkward and timid. I also don't like it when candidates whine about not getting enough chances to speak. He actually was exactly what I was expecting Tim Pawlenty to be, but more on that later.

Rick Santorum never gave any substantive answers, and when he said freedom comes from God I was a little unsettled. He refuses to acknowledge that the party needs a truce on social issues, though then again not a single Republican candidate does anymore.

Ron Paul gets props for coming out against waterboarding. I don't care if there's a remote chance that it led to bin Laden, I still don't want to us doing it. Other than that he didn't make much of an impression on me, and I can't help but feel that he has no chance.

Finally, Tim Pawlenty failed to shine, but that doesn't mean he did a bad job. I'd say he had the best performance of all the other candidates, but I utterly disagreed with almost everything he said. He totally sidestepped questions on how he balanced the budget using fuzzy math and odd legislative tricks. He actually told a story about how he failed to lead the state legislature to pass a budget plan that would come out in the black while he was governor! I found his statements on the UN to be appalling, and reminded me of why I still don't feel comfortable giving Republicans control over America's foreign policy apparatus. He kept trying to relate to how Americans are suffering because of the economy through his experiences as a child. But that was ages ago and he's been on the government gravy train for at least 10 years now. He can't be suffering too much if he's been able to not work at all for the past two years. Finally, whenever he tried criticizing Obama's foreign policy, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Who is this guy, and what makes him think that he can "out-tough" and "out-policy" the president? I see nothing on his record of substance to back up his bravado. To be fair, only Huntsman and maybe Romney could do that without looking ridiculous, which is a major problem for the field this year. Anyhow, even though he is an unimpressive, boring phoney at the end of the night Pawlenty still looked more presidential compared to the other participants, so I suppose he won.

 

It may be a challenge to frame that in a way voters can understand.

I've been arguing since 2009 that Obama's future hangs on the unemployment rate. NPR posited this morning that an unemployment rate of less than 8% in November 2012 would be enough for Obama to claim success in job creation, but to achieve that level by then would take ~190k added nonfarm payroll jobs per month.

So, even though the unemployment rate apparently increased again with this latest report, the 250k job gain, if it could be sustained, would bring the unemployment rate down to well below 8% by election day. I'm not suggesting I believe the latest number (which will be revised in any case) represents a trend.

But the key to relate it to Darth Ghost's post in the U.S. v China thread will be to boost the savings rate and begin to create jobs to make high end products for export to places like China. The kind of stuff that Caterpillar makes. Or turnkey power plants, etc. The heady free for all days of American consumption are over.

So, the long term benefit for Obama is that he has neutralized Republicans on the war on terror so now perhaps needs only modest economic gains to seal a victory.

 

I'd say today's report completes the best week Obama will ever have as president, unless he gets to enjoy re-election. A gain of 250,000 jobs will likely sustain his approval rating bounce for a bit longer than if the report had been lacklustre. And yeah, the unemployment rate ticking up to 9% reflects a problem with how the government actually calculates unemployment rather than with the recovery itself.

Problems lurk down the road though, as jobless claims have been rising in recent weeks. Unemployment is the lagging indicator of the economy, so that may just be the signs of inflation finally putting pressure on the labor market. Gas futures dropped below 100 dollars yesterday though, so perhaps job numbers may be so-so in June and July but then return to normalcy. I agree with Jabba that with more reports like this one, Obama's re-election prospects look better. We'll have to wait and see which ones win the day. Fun.

 

Eh, I don't know Jabba.

Entering re-election, Obama is going to have to face his own record, and no candidate is even in campaign mode yet. Uncertainty is Obama's greatest enemy. Not uncertainty regarding events, but uncertainty in the disconnect between what he says, what he does, and who he allows to frame the debates.

If I was a GOP challenger, I would endlessly play actual clips of Obama promising to close Gitmo, or treat terrorism as a law enforcement only issue, or the millions wasted on unused terrorism prisons, that sort of thing... The result would be that Obama will either have to come out and say that yes, he did do a complete 180 degree turn and the republicans were right all along, or he's going to fall into the trap of trying to shotgun through all the nuances to make it seem that he's not actually a flip-flopper.

The latter result, besides them both being more boring that a bag of rocks, was what doomed both Kerry and Gore. Obama is more charismatic than both Gore and Kerry combined, but he's still going to be forced to go into his re-election by explaining how he abandoned nearly every democratic sided idea, and adopted all the republican ones. It would be gutsy and honest if he just stood up and admitted that he was a "closet neo-con," but I suspect he's actually going to bog himself down in the details trying to twist why he's not.

It might even be successful if a challenger stands up and says that he would have done everything possible to have had bin Laden captured and brought to justice at the international criminal court, considering all the nations that are involved in Afghanistan, and how many people bin Laden affected. If they're credible, that would be a grand slam.

And that's not even dealing with any of the economic issues.

 

(two posts for space)

And then there's this reality:

[image=http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/050611_REVENGE_20110506_123934.jpg]

If there's a revenge attack any time between now and the election, it's going to cause real problems for the administration. I'd say that the actual attack would fall to secondary status.(depending on how serious it is, of course) What would be more visible, and hit home more readily to voters is if the administration has to clamp down with more security measures, and/or adopt additional invasive policies.

Giving the order to kill bin Laden was the easy part. Any President would have done the same thing. Dealing with the consequences is going to be the real challenge.

 

I disagree, if there is a retaliatory attack I expect Americans to rally around Obama. Unless Republicans want to suggest that we shouldn't have gone for bin Laden.

 

44, republicans are going to hammer Obama for flip-flopping toward the right? That's not going to work - it's just an excuse for centrists who don't give a damn whether we torture Muslims to make the safe call and vote for the incumbent.

The good news for the GOP is that if the House Republicans get their way on spending cuts, it will likely flip us back into recession before the end of 2012. Again, hopefully "Obama's best week ever as president" will give him a little bit more leverage over the process.

Odds are for now that the dems lose the Senate and Obama keeps the white house.

 

No, no. They're going to hammer Obama for not knowing what he is going to do. As in he's only giving lip service to the issues.

It's extremely easy to capitalize on this. I mean, when HW Bush was voted out of office, Clinton didn't attack Bush for adopting policy that was close to his, or becoming more like a democrat. That would be dumb. Clinton attacked Bush for being uncertain and unreliable. ie- "wait, wait, you're the President, and you promised not to raise taxes, and yet, you did exactly that? What else are you going to say and then do the opposite of?" Remember, HW Bush enjoyed a high 89% approval rating, and was probably more capable than both Clinton and his son who would follow. But Clinton was able to out campaign him on his flip-flop because the situation didn't match up to the promise. It's easy for any challenger to paint a picture that Obama got lucky in simply being in office while bin Laden was found, but that really his overall policy is unfocused and jumbled, because the reality is that the administration's policies are unfocused and jumbled.

 

Mr44, your memory is faulty. Obama has always said Al Qaeda was a military issue (i.e, the whole debate about exiting Iraq and ramping up Afghanistan). He said he would strike at bin Laden wherever he was found including Pakistan, while McCain and Bush called him reckless for threatening Pakistan's sovereignty. Yes, he flipped on military trials/Gitmo, but that was largely because the a large portion of congressional democrats defected on the issue.

In unrelated matters, a credible Republican supporting the ICC is a contradiction in terms.

*Edit*

No, Mr44, the reality is that Bush's policies were unfocused and jumbled. He was the one that responded to an Al Qaeda attack by creating a war against "terrorism", uniting all terrorists under one umbrella rather than seeking to divide the various groups against themselves. He was the one that took his eye of the Al Qaeda ball by focusing the military and intellegence services on Iraq, which was hardly a pressing issue. Not to mention the progress North Korea and Iran had in their nuclear programs (though I'm willing to give a pass there because not much can be done).

Obama, on the other hand, has always been clear about ending the war on terrorism while ramping up the war on Al Qaeda (see his emphasis on Afghanistan, the drone attacks, and this latest bin Laden raid).

 

That's simply not true. Although you just highlighted exactly how jumbled the administration's policies are.

The Obama administration faulted the previous one for treating al Qaeda as a military issue, as that was the entire point in promising to close down Gitmo, and transfering the detainees to US soil where they would stand trial in federal court. al Qaeda was the organization that Obama promised to not treat as a military problem, as things like increasing financial pressure and the like where going to be tried. If you're referring to Afghanistan, then you're confusing al Qaeda and the Taliban, as it's the resurgence of the Taliban who the administration focused its increased military action against. Taliban =/= al Qaeda. He did point out the importance of the Pakistani border as part of criticism of Iraq, but I don't think he's ever on record as promising anything to close to him increasing military operations against the organization.

Of course, the reality is that once he assumed office, he didn't do any of that, and instead ramped up direct force against al Qaeda, which is a complete 180 turn from what was put forth.

If you want to review an article from 2009, here you go:

EXAMPLE

9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 4 other Gitmo detainees will stand trial in NY: Obama official. WASHINGTON - The diabolical monsters who plotted the mass slaughter of 9/11 are headed to New York City for the mother of all murder trials. promises to be a chilling spectacle in a city haunted by the horror and still rebuilding from the devastation of more than eight years ago. It also will be the biggest terror trial in history - until and unless Osama Bin Laden himself is caught and brought to justice. The attorney general (Eric Holder) billed his move to transfer the cases from the military to the civilian judicial system as a "significant step forward" - not a step back as critics charge - in bringing the Al Qaeda goons to justice.

I think the original intent is pretty clear, so I'm not sure where your paragraph is even coming from. Of course, the administration then put that trial on hold, and Sheikn Mohammed was kept in military custody and tried by a military tribunal. And for some insight, here's another article which is a year older than the above one, and sets some context as to why:

HERE

Although it looks like political necessity reared its ugly head in this case.

 

Are you serious?

Obama always treated Al Qaeda as a threat that must be met with all tools available, including military. Have you not seen the videos of him from 2007 and 2008 where he said he would increase troops in Afghanistan to focus on Al Qaeda (I believe this was even before the return of the Taliban)? And then that he wouldn't hesitate to go into Pakistan and take out Bin Laden if he had credible intelligence (which both Hillary Clinton and John McCain criticized him for)?

 

Sorry for the double post, but I found this Who will be the next U.S. President thread, from 2002. Thought some people here might appreciate it!

 

Somehow someone named "Tim" doesn't seem Presidential. Ditto someone named "Mitt"

 

Well, Trump has officially announced he won't run.

This leaves us with:
1. Mitt Romney
2. Tim Pawlenty
3. Newt Gingrich
4. Ron Paul
5. Rick Santorum
6. Herman Cain
and possibly the following:
7. Mitch Daniels
8. Jon Hunstman
9. Michele Bachmann
with the following being speculated on running, probably aren't, if they do run they'd be jokes, but no announcement yet made:
10. Sarah Palin
11. John Bolton
12. Rudy Giuliani



Geithner announces the debt ceiling has been reached today, and is taking emergency measures to limit the effects until August to give time for Congress to raise it.

I don't think names really matter. I mean, we've had presidents with the first name Barack, Dwight, Jimmy, Lyndon, Harry.

 

Mitt's eldest son is named 'Tagg'.