There is no question that things do not look good at the moment for President Obama in his hopes for re-election. Yesterday, the Republicans won a special House election in Brooklyn, a seat held by Democrats for the last 90+ years. Obama's numbers are down, there are a a lot of disgruntled Democrats and "independents," and with the economy floundering, Republicans have a right to be optimistic about their chances of winning back the Presidency next year. Barack Obama is an incredibly incompetent President, but why this should surprise anyone is beyond me. He was, far and away, the least qualified candidate any major political party has put forth for the presidency in the history of this country. There was absolutely nothing in his background that came anywhere close to preparing him for the highest office in the land, and it is utterly appalling that he became President of the United States. I knew this in 2008 because I know history and I understand liberalism, and thus I am not in the least bit surprised at how incompetent and inept he has been. I fully expected it. If Apple were to offer me the job replacing Steve Jobs, then that company should anticipate being in the toilet in a very short time. The people of the United States should in no way be surprised at the current malaise of their country, given the qualifications and experience of the man whom they gave charge of it. Fortunately, the President is not all-powerful and there are still some checks and balances on what he can do. But, given all the circumstances and hedges that do, more or less, surround the President, I don't know how any one man could have made things any worse since January, 2009, than Barack Obama has made them. He has taken what should have been a very brief economic downtick and stretched it out to the unforeseen future. Overseas, he has alienated and angered our friends and cuddled up to our enemies. His one domestic "success"--Obamacare--has businesses scared stiff because they don't know the ultimate cost of it, and his one foreign "success"--the killing of Osama bin Laden--was because of groundwork laid by George Bush and would never have happened if Obama had stuck to his campaign promises on what he intended to do in the Middle East. So his only real "victory" came as a result of a broken promise. He simply has no clue about what to do as President of the United States, any more than I would as CEO of a major corporation like Apple.
And, yet, I'm telling you right now, he COULD be re-elected.
People are suggesting that the 9.1% unemployment rate could spell doom for Obama. And it might. It's very possible that unemployment figures will remain, next year, about what they are now, but they could improve if Obama and Congress do what they should--or at least, if they'll do nothing. Businesses are concerned about new taxes, regulations, Obamacare--just the uncertainly of what Obama is going to do and his history of, so far, doing everything wrong. But if there is some indication that government will be quiet and even leave things as they are now, there might be some temptation to invest--businesses do want to make money, of course, and they need to invest to do that. Obama is talking more taxes and "stimulus," which is the wrong thing, of course, and if he continues along that path, he can indeed go down to a crushing defeat. Let's hope so.
But he does have a bit of history on his side. Franklin Roosevelt easily ranks as one of the two or three worst Presidents in American history--he is largely to blame for the economic mess the government is now in because it was he who began this massive welfare state. Other Presidents have simply built onto it. But...FDR was elected to the Presidency four times, and twice when the unemployment rate was far higher than it is now. FDR, for all his economic stupidity, was a master politician. Economic reality and political impressions are two widely different things. Obama might lose because of the former. But if he can read his teleprompter as effectively as he did in 2008, or--more appropriately--if enough people can be demogogued by his sycophantic liberal media, he could win again. This is not a one man show here. Obama's going to have the might of the Democratic Party machine--and that media--behind him. They were able to sell him in 2008. They might be able to do it again. We're still 14 months away from the election, and that's plenty of time to give the Republicans an opportunity to do something really idiotic, too--like nominate another John McCain. So it's far from over.
And there's one thing, above all, that Obama can pin his hopes upon and that scares me more than anything else...never, NEVER underestimate the stupidity of a democratic electorate.