White guilt and 2012

President Obama’s approval ratings are slipping and support for his policies are likewise sliding; this has caused an early but seemingly plausible forecast for both 2010 and 2012.

Last night on The O’Reilly Factor, Dick Morris pointed out that Mr. Obama is in the same boat Bill Clinton was in his first term – tacking too far to the left after running as a center-left moderate and then staying there in hiding until the republican’s won the majority in the House in 1994. Morris also pointed out this made Bill Clinton reassess his presidency and we all know what came of it, Newt Gingrich and Tom DeLay got their agenda through the White House. Bill Clinton was now a bi-partisan, centrist president.

Fast forward to 2009, wherein President Obama finds himself in the same dilemma; just as in 1993, Congress’ approval ratings were also tanking as they are now. The momentum has shifted since 2006, and the republicans look primed to pick-up many seats, if not outright win the majority in the House.

And herein lays the road to 2012: should the republicans win control of Congress, Obama can win a second term, should the republicans not win control of Congress, Obama may still win a second term.

How so? One answer: white guilt.

Should the republicans win control of the Congress and move against Mr. Obama, come 2012, white liberals will rally to their President because of the mean, dastardly republican majority. Any problems won’t be his fault, after all he tried to fix this or that, but the right-wingers in Congress just wouldn’t let him. And let’s not forget the black and Hispanic vote; they’re well likely to share the same sympathy – not letting the first black President succeed.

Should the republicans win a Congressional majority as they did in 1994, Mr. Obama would likely have no trouble throwing his party under the bus, move to the center and ride bi-partisan popularity to reelection.

In the event that the democrats keep control of Congress that too could work in Mr. Obama’s favor. The sympathy wouldn’t be all that different – just replace a republican majority with boogie man right-wing zealots and the huge mess George W. Bush left behind.

Though the tide is definitely against Mr. Obama and his party, the tide is largely comprised of distrust and anger. As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, that might be enough for republicans to take back the majority, but it won’t be enough to sustain them through 2012. They’ll need to keep in a leadership mode and continue to offer better ideas. But that may be all Mr. Obama needs to get enough white guilt to eek out a second term in 2012.

-- KillswitchPolitick

The Hillary 2012 Strategy

The Internet is buzzing with the news that Phillip Berg, a Hillary Clinton supporter, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the DNC and the FEC claiming that the presumptive democrat nominee is not constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States.

(Berg is a former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, ex-chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery County, PA, past member of the Democratic State Committee, and previous Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania).

We also know that Hillary has not released her delegates and rumors fly that her supporters lobbied the super delegates, which assisted in placing her name in nomination for a roll-call vote at the Democratic Convention.

Likewise known is the lack of support from Obama’s campaign to aid in retiring her campaign debt and her tepid stumping for Obama, while getting prime billing at the convention for herself, Bill and Chelsea.

What is one to make of this?

The most convenient and simplest answer is trying to figuratively secure the nomination for herself. I use the adjective “figuratively” because she is attempting to place her viability before the DNC and the average democrat voter.

The more her supporters are able to undermine Obama’s run for election, the more she looks to be the obvious choice in 2012. One might then contend that her inevitability didn’t bring her nomination to fruition in this go-around.

That is because it’s now painfully obvious that Nancy Pelosi, the DNC and beltway dems tried to jettison her (and Bill) from the party leadership. Clinton fatigue has assuredly set in, and the time was right to rid themselves of the couple from Hope.

However, if her supporters (who are not by-and-large backing Barack) are successful at putting the kibosh on Obama to the extent it costs him the election, she becomes the natural choice in 2012.

And with Obama doing so poorly in the polls (he should be well ahead of McCain by at least 15 points among likely voters), it makes evident the fact he is not connecting with the American public – no matter what the mainstream media has reported.

There are of course other factors that have kept him from running further ahead: his guilt by association scandals, his inability to speak off-the-cuff and his lack of experience make it all-the-more-difficult.

But with all of the ancillary help he’s received (e.g. favorable media coverage, endorsements, the shutting-out of Bill and Hillary, et cetera) he’s still not been able to capitalize on it.

Hillary knows these facts full-well and won’t hesitate to use them in her favor. As we’ve learned about the Clinton’s, that which doesn’t kill them only makes them stronger.