Doyle McManus: Obama's Suddenly Bumpy Road to Reelection
[Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has reported on national and international issues from Washington for more than 25 years. His weekly Op-Ed column delivers original reporting and analysis on a wide range of national issues.]
One of the oddities of American politics is that midterm congressional elections don't tell us what's likely to happen to a first-term president in the reelection campaign that follows. Bill Clinton's Democrats suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1994, but Clinton cruised to easy reelection in 1996. George H.W. Bush's Republicans did well in 1990 by losing only a handful of seats, but Bush lost the presidency two years later.
So let's ignore for a moment the noise of the coming midterm elections and look ahead to 2012 and the presidential campaign that's already underway. The news of the past few weeks has raised early warning signals about President Obama's prospects for reelection.
Start with the economy. Until recently, Democrats were fairly confident that Obama could count on the economic recovery to gather steam next year in plenty of time to lift voters' spirits and make his reelection easier. Their historical model is Ronald Reagan, who suffered a big setback in the midterm elections of 1982, when unemployment was about as high as it is now, only to win reelection by a landslide in 1984 after the economy rebounded....
But Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush both lost bids for reelection in years when the economy was improving; it just wasn't improving fast enough.
No modern president has run for reelection when unemployment was over 8%, as it could be in 2012. (The last was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won in 1940 with unemployment at 14.6%, but that was an improvement from 19% in 1938.)
A second problem for Obama: He won't be able to blame George W. Bush for the nation's problems in 2012.
Read entire article at LA Times
One of the oddities of American politics is that midterm congressional elections don't tell us what's likely to happen to a first-term president in the reelection campaign that follows. Bill Clinton's Democrats suffered a catastrophic defeat in 1994, but Clinton cruised to easy reelection in 1996. George H.W. Bush's Republicans did well in 1990 by losing only a handful of seats, but Bush lost the presidency two years later.
So let's ignore for a moment the noise of the coming midterm elections and look ahead to 2012 and the presidential campaign that's already underway. The news of the past few weeks has raised early warning signals about President Obama's prospects for reelection.
Start with the economy. Until recently, Democrats were fairly confident that Obama could count on the economic recovery to gather steam next year in plenty of time to lift voters' spirits and make his reelection easier. Their historical model is Ronald Reagan, who suffered a big setback in the midterm elections of 1982, when unemployment was about as high as it is now, only to win reelection by a landslide in 1984 after the economy rebounded....
But Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush both lost bids for reelection in years when the economy was improving; it just wasn't improving fast enough.
No modern president has run for reelection when unemployment was over 8%, as it could be in 2012. (The last was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won in 1940 with unemployment at 14.6%, but that was an improvement from 19% in 1938.)
A second problem for Obama: He won't be able to blame George W. Bush for the nation's problems in 2012.