Election of 2012

Barack Obama’s Popularity Remains High Despite Health Care Controversy

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Amidst all of the criticism of President Obama on conservative talk radio and Fox News Channel, the fact is that he remains extremely popular personally. That is certainly infuriating to his naysayers!

While polls this week show Obama down to an all time low of 46 percent, realize that if after all of the venom used against him by Tea Party activists and other conservatives he is still that close to 50 percent, then indeed he is in good shape!

Polls show that 61 percent still find Obama inspiring; 57 percent see him as decisive; 54 percent state that he gives them hope for the future; and 49 percent say he makes them feel proud.

Only about a third feel Obama is arrogant or detached, or makes them feel angry. Only 12 percent of conservative Republicans like the job Obama is doing, but twice that number still find him inspiring.

Early indications are that Obama is in good shape for 2012, considering these polls numbers from the Pew Research Center. While there may be discontent, Obama has not fallen to the low figures that George W. Bush had, and it is, at this point, hard to see any Republican opponent being strong enough to counteract him.

The Halo Around Scott Brown: A Need For Realism!

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Scott Brown, the newly elected Senator from Massachusetts, has a halo around him today, as he is the man of the hour and could in theory kill health care reform in the Senate, now that the Republicans have 41 votes in the Senate and could, if they remain united, filibuster any legislation on the subject and many others.

Some are even suggesting that Scott Brown, with his good looks and charisma and beautiful family, could be a potential candidate for President in 2012!

But before we go awry on this concept, realize something that Scott Brown has to know in his heart. That is that he faces election for a full term in the Senate in 34 months, and while he won a convincing victory by five points last night in a special election, he certainly knows that the Democrats will be targeting him for 2012, a Presidential election year, and he will have the battle of his life to keep the seat he has gained for now.

With the conservative record he possesses, can one really think that Massachusetts, still a “blue” state more than most in a section of the country known to be more “liberal” than the rest of the country, will actually reelect him to a full term, if he votes and speaks as a right winger? He has shown in the past that he has reactionary views on race and gender and has no interest in social or economic reform. Even the Republican senators who served in the last century from Massachusetts–including Edward Brooke (the first African American elected Senator), Leverett Saltonstall, and Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. were moderate to liberal, rather than conservative!

Has Massachusetts by this vote suddenly become “red” (Republican) and will repudiate its past of such moderates as the above, plus the contributions of the Kennedys, John Kerry, Paul Tsongas, and all of its ten liberal Democratic congressmen? I would have to say that to imagine that is to be hallucinatory! 🙂

So the career of Scott Brown in the US Senate is bound to be very short lived indeed!

Barack Obama And Early Polling On 2012

Ronald 3 Comments

New polling reveals that Barack Obama, after eight months in office and bitter, nasty attacks by right wing media, the Republican party, Freedom/Works and Tea Party Patriots, and confrontational Town Hall meetings in August, is still in an excellent position to win re-election.

What the polling shows is that among those who voted for Obama, more than 53 percent, extremely high numbers still are pleased with him, in the 90s percentiles.

At the same time, among those who voted against Obama, most (over 90 percent) are still vehemently against Obama, but remember John McCain only won about 47 percent of the vote.

So, in other words, Obama remains in a very similar position in public opinion polls as he was on Election Day last November.

Therefore, despite all the screaming, yelling and demagogic attacks, Barack Obama is in an excellent position for the next Presidential race.

If anything, the attacks against him have only solidified support for him, as it is recognized that he was given the toughest inheritance on his succession to the Presidency since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Democrats’ Growth In The Western States And 2012

Ronald Leave a comment

Every indication is that the Democrats can expect to do well in the “New Western” states in future elections, as a result of trends that have favored them in the past few election cycles.

The “New West” is defined as those states not bordering on the Pacific Ocean. Three of them were won by President Obama in 2008–Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. He came close in Montana and had a good chance in Arizona if John McCain had not been his opponent. These eight states have 17 representatives and seven senators and four governors who are Democrats.

With the growing Hispanic population in these states, the Democrats have strong odds to win the same three states they won in 2008, plus Montana and Arizona. One can forget Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, which are the three states most loyally Republican along with Oklahoma, according to other polls that indicate party loyalty.

So any indication that temporarily Obama’s public opinion ratings are declining fails to take into account that it will have very little effect in 2012, since the polls are very much a judgment of the moment subject to dramatic change over the next few years, and the Electoral College system heavily favors the President’s reelection, unless there is a major disaster or tragedy to change the minds of the mass of citizens.

It is hard after the economic collapse of 2008 to imagine any situation as dire as that to transform the national mood.