Public opinion polls show President Barack Obama with a 52 percent positive rating as he begins his second term in the Presidency.
At the same time, the Republican Party has a 26 percent positive rating.
Speaker of the House John Boehner has a 18 percent positive rating.
The Congress has a 14 percent positive rating
The Tea Party Movement has a 9 percent positive rating.
Enough said about where public opinion stands on politics on Inauguration Day!
A new poll shows Republicans at a low point in popularity, only gaining 26 percent support, while 49 percent see the party as negative.
Also, 64 percent of Republicans believe Barack Obama is hiding his past, with many believing the “Birther” theory that he was born in Kenya, and is not an American citizen. Also, 19 percent believe Obama stole the 2012 election.
What can one say after hearing these poll numbers? The Republican Party has become so right wing, so out of touch with reality, that it will believe anything negative about Obama, and has made clear that they will do everything possible to block any successes by the President on any subject, including the economy.
With their inability to gain majority or near majority support of women, Hispanics and Latinos, Asian Americans, African Americans, young people, gays and lesbians, labor, environmentalists, and of 60 percent of the electoral votes of the nation, the Republican Party needs to change its tune, but looks as if they are doubling down on their obstinacy, obstructionism, and negativism.
This means further defeats, and possible dissolution of the Republican Party after 160 years of existence, including glorious times, sadly now a faint memory!
Today has been a very momentous day, as the United States Supreme Court has chosen to accept two cases on gay marriage, one involving the constitutionality of the Defense Of Marriage Act of 1996, and the other the validity of the passage of Proposition 8 in California, banning gay marriage.
This could be the blockbuster case of the present term, when it is decided in late June of 2013, after oral arguments in March.
This matter brings to mind the Loving V Virginia case of 1967, when the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right of interracial couples to be able to marry, a very controversial and divisive case in the age of the Civil Rights Movement.
It should be pointed out that many Southerners and Christian religious leaders opposed interracial marriage bitterly, but once it was settled by the Supreme Court, the issue was moot.
The same opposition, heavily Southern and religiously based, is now vehemently against gay marriage, but the tides of history are going against a continuation of discrimination.
If gay marriage is accepted by the Court, after already being legal in nine states, no religious group would be required to marry a gay couple, but they could be married civilly by a judge or county clerk, or hire someone who is legally qualified to marry couples.
The belief is strong that the Court will rule at least 5-4, if not 6-3, for gay marriage rights, with the four Democratic appointments to the Court—Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan—voting for the majority, along with Justice Anthony Kennedy, and possibly Chief Justice John Roberts.
Kennedy is the key vote, but since he supported the right of gays to privacy in the Lawrence V. Texas case in 2003, and was, indeed, the decisive fifth vote, it is believed he will take a step further in support of this major step forward.
Roberts is an unknown quantity, but after his surprising vote for ObamaCare in June, it is believed he might join the majority on this significant case.
So now, ten years later, it looks likely that the Court will have evolved further, and the right of anyone to marry who they love will be guaranteed as a basic civil right.
This is basic social justice, and a majority in public opinion polls, and particularly the younger generation, support gay marriage.
No one is saying that there cannot be people who oppose gay marriage, but society does not have the right to use their prejudices and religious views to deny basic human rights to others!
First Lady Michelle Obama is rumored to be a possible candidate for the US Senate seat of Mark Kirk in 2016, when the man who took over President Obama’s Senate seat by election in 2010 comes up for reelection.
Michelle Obama has evidenced absolutely no interest, but who can say for sure, considering that her daughters will be four years older, and more on their own, as compared to now, and with her mother and the President able to assist, if need be.
It must be pointed out that Mark Kirk has, sadly, been recovering this past year, his second year in the Senate, from a massive paralytic stroke, and this could affect public opinion ratings for or against him, depending on what happens in the future. And it could make him decide to retire at the end of his term in 2016.
But Illinois voters right now vastly favor Michelle Obama over Kirk, for whatever it is worth.
Certainly, Michelle Obama has demonstrated that she is very smart, articulate, and a great contributor to the position of First Lady, much like Hillary Clinton before her, who ran for the Senate in the last year of President Bill Clinton’s second term.
So who can say for sure what the future might bring?
As Hillary Clinton gets ready to leave the State Department after four distinguished years, she is being flattered by kudos paid to her brilliance, and public opinion polls that make her, on paper, an easy nominee and winner of the Presidency in 2016!
But hold it, everyone! Our system of government and elections does not permit the nomination and election of anyone without real competition, hard work, and lots of grief and “blood, sweat and tears”!
We do not crown anyone to be President, and if you believe otherwise, ask such luminaries of the past as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William Seward, Charles Evans Hughes, William Borah, Hiram Johnson, Robert La Follette Sr, Al Smith, Henry A. Wallace, Robert Taft, Arthur Vandenberg, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, Nelson Rockefeller, George McGovern, Bob Dole, Bob Kerrey, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, and even Hillary Clinton, about the conclusion that they would be President of the United States someday!
Fifty seven percent in a poll want Hillary to be President, but it is a long four years to 2016, and there will be many others who wish to be President, and the question is whether she wants to go through the same hell she went through in 2008!
Don’t be so sure that Hillary will run in 2016!
Nate Silver, the most legitimate prognosticator on the American political scene, who writes for the NY TIMES, has upped the ante on the reelection of Barack Obama to the White House with his declaration that the odds for Obama have been raised to 85 percent, based on 19 of 22 polls in the “swing states” in the past few days, showing him ahead.
Silver has always put Obama in the lead, but now, after Hurricane Sandy, his odds of winning have gone up.
So despite the Gallup and Rasmussen polls that show a near deadlock, Silver claims that Mitt Romney winning is a real gamble, and would not be worth a bet, unless one is prepared to lose a large amount of money!
We all know about the Gallup polls of 1948, which were totally wrong, but this is NOT 1948, and the thought is that the Gallup and Rasmussen polls are wrong, and that Nate Silver and the polls that show Obama winning are correct.
This author has always believed that Obama would win, based on his record, and the multiple faults and weaknesses of Mitt Romney and his campaign.
In about 60 hours, we shall know!
IF by some chance, the electoral vote would be evenly divided 269-269, the House of Representatives, likely to have more states with a Republican majority delegation, would then get to choose the President, as they did in 1800 and 1824, and would then choose Mitt Romney, their party’s nominee.
But if the Democrats continued to control the US Senate, then Vice President Joe Biden would be likely to be chosen, and we would have a split White House, which we only had after the 1796 election, when Thomas Jefferson was the opponent of John Adams, and ended up as his unhappy Vice President, and then defeated him in a tumultuous election in 1800.
The 12th Amendment in 1804 was supposed to prevent such an eventuality again, but it is possible, but highly unlikely, that such a scenario could happen.
This would be bad for America, as certainly Romney and Biden would not get along, and it is well known that Biden has ambitions to run for President in 2016, and would likely oppose President Romney on every issue imaginable, as they might be opponents in 2016, when Romney would run for reelection.
It is interesting to think about this, but no one should worry, as the odds of a tie of 269-269 is highly remote, and every indication from the “swing states” and Nate Silver in the NY Times is that Barack Obama will win the Electoral College without any problem, and win most of the contested states, as many other polls also indicate!
Ohio, the state that EVERY Republican President has won from Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush, remains strongly behind Barack Obama, with six days to go to the Presidential Election of 2012.
It seems as if Mitt Romney may be gaining in other “swing states”, according to some polls, although others show otherwise, but without Ohio, Romney would have to win all of the rest of those states to pull out a victory, and despite the Gallup national poll, which shows Romney ahead, the Nate Silver–NY Times model seems more likely the final result.
And if Obama wins Ohio and the election, the likely major reason will be because Obama saved the auto industry in Ohio and the Midwest, while Romney, despite his father’s involvement in the industry, will willing to allow it to die, and take with it, million of jobs, including ancillary industries.
Here we are a week out from the election, and the public opinion polls and prognosticators are driving everyone nuts, with contradictory views and statistics as to whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney will be elected next week.
The Gallup polls have projected Romney as ahead by five points in some polls, and other polls have shown a tight race, almost even.
Meanwhile, Nate Silver of the NY TIMES, considered the master of political polling science, says that Barack Obama has about a 73 percent chance of winning, particularly in regard to the “swing states”, showing him ahead in all but North Carolina and Florida, and a tossup in Colorado and Virginia.
But leaving North Carolina, Florida, Colorado and Virginia out of the mix for Obama, that still means he is favored in New Hampshire, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nevada, and will win 295 electoral votes, 24 more than is needed to win the Presidency.
So this leaves us in a quandary!
Who do we trust or believe in? Nate Silver or the Gallup Polls, or other polls?
Remember, the Gallup polls were totally wrong in 1948, predicting a victory for Thomas E. Dewey over Harry Truman!
But, of course, that was 64 years ago, a long time, with much improvement and proof of reliability of Gallup much of the time!
On the other hand, the last time we had such a stiff, awkward, hard to relate to, Governor of a Northeastern state who had been born in Michigan, before Mitt Romney was, indeed, Dewey in 1948!
Hmmm, that is food for thought!
As the battle for Florida’s electoral votes goes on, many observers are failing to realize the possible influence of the massively increased Puerto Rican population, particularly in the major area of significance, Central Florida.
Often, many people assume that the Hispanic vote is mostly Cuban, and that they, of course, traditionally vote Republican because of the failure of John F. Kennedy to eliminate Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.
But in recent years, the Puerto Rican population in the state of Florida, and particularly, in Central Florida, has ballooned to nearly match or surpass the Cuban population found mostly in South Florida.
There are nearly a million Puerto Ricans in Florida, a state that is always rapidly changing, and becoming more non Cuban Hispanic by the month.
The Puerto Ricans of Florida, with smaller numbers in the past, supported the election and reelection of Governor Jeb Bush, but they went to Barack Obama for President in 2008, and are seen as likely, by large percentages, to vote for him again. The key, as always, will be voter turnout.
Additionally, there are a growing number of Hispanics from other nations in the Western Hemisphere, and the tendency of many would be to support Obama, although the very religious element, against abortion and gay marriage, might not, but the point being made here is that to assume, because of some polls at the moment, that Mitt Romney has Florida locked up, with its 29 electoral votes, is a massive mistake, as Florida will be in play, and may well decide who is the next President. And realize that younger Cuban Americans, in many cases, are abandoning the Republican beliefs of their parents and grandparents, and some will vote for Barack Obama!
And remember, with the biggest prize of the “swing” states, 29 electoral votes, Florida may select Barack Obama for a second term, and without the intervention of the Supreme Court for George W. Bush, as in the Presidential Election of 2000!