Republicans are determined to win the presidency in November. But can President Obama really be defeated in his reelection bid?
Conventional wisdom is that Americans normally vote based on “bread and butter” issues. That is, how they feel about the economy, in general, and their financial position in particular. By this metric it would appear the President Obama does not have a strong platform to run on.
Gas has hit over $3.00 a gallon and experts say it may rise to $4.25 by the end of May. Unemployment is 8.3% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Reuters reports that foreclosures are on the rise again and currently account for 25% of all home sales. The national debt has passed 15 trillion (specifically, 15,488,891,296,248.02 as of February 29, 2012 according to the Bureau of the Public Debt) and is on a trajectory that Brookings predicts will become unsustainable in future years, putting the United States on the same financial path as near-bankrupt Greece.
With all of this beak news, President Obama’s chances for reelection seem very slim, right?
Wrong.
There is an overwhelming likelihood that President Obama will win a second term. How can this be?Certainly, he has considerable political skill and enormous financial resources to deliver his message and to attack his opponents, but what he possesses — and none of the Republican candidates can acquire — is the power of incumbency. That is, Obama already has the office of the presidency.
Like every other president who ran for reelection in modern history, Obama can use the “bully pulpit’ to influence national discussions (like the recent flap over compelling religious institutions to pay for certain elements of “ObamaCare” that conflict with their religious beliefs), dominate the news cycle and facilitate his fund raising — among other advantages.
Since the start of the 20 th century, only George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Herbert Hoover, and William Taft were not reelected or elected (in the case of Ford ). In each of these cases the incumbent president faced inter-party dissension and challenges. George H.W. Bush was challenged by Patrick Buchanan, Jimmy Carter by Ted Kennedy, Gerald Ford by Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson by Eugene McCarthy (Johnson subsequently announced he would not seek reelection), Herbert Hoover by Joseph Irwin France (as well as a draft Coolidge movement) and William Taft by Theodore Roosevelt. Every one of these incumbent presidents were defeated.
If Hillary Clinton had challenged President Obama for the Democratic nomination this year, Obama might very will have joined the above incumbents who have lost. But she did not, so Obama goes into this general election with a united Democratic Party and, most likely, to joining all the other presidents who have gone on to win reelection since 1901.