House of Eratosthenes

We’re fast approaching the halfway point in Barack Obama’s term. With Nov. 2 behind him, everything the president does will be calculated to boost, or at least not harm, his chances of re-election in 2012. What’s not clear is whether he fully appreciates how badly the coalition he led to victory in 2008 has frayed in just two years. A look inside his poll numbers suggests that if he cannot turn around some key trends, he’ll be a one-term president.

Just look at the exit polls from 2008, which reveal the demographic contours of Obama’s support. Compare those with Gallup’s weekly analysis of the president’s approval rating, drawn from multiple polls broken down by age, gender, political philosophy, and the like. Throw in some insights from the midterm elections, and the mix shows a dramatic deterioration in Obama’s 2008 support. “His majority coalition is not there,” says Republican pollster David Winston. “What he put together, at least in the way he put it together, just isn’t there.”

Start with voters who call themselves independents. Obama won 52 percent of them in 2008; now, according to Gallup, he is at 42 percent. Obama’s party as a whole fared even worse among independents in the midterms, losing them to Republicans by 19 points. If Obama does anywhere near that badly in 2012, he’ll lose.

Next, women. In 2008, Obama won 56 percent of female voters. Today, he’s at 49 percent. If that number doesn’t improve, he’ll be in deep trouble. (Obama is also down with men, from 49 percent in 2008 to 44 percent now.)

Even younger voters, a key part of Obama’s coalition, are peeling away. In ’08, Obama won 66 percent of voters 18-29 years of age. Now, he’s at 58 percent. That might seem pretty good, but not when you consider his deterioration among other age groups. Obama has dropped 5 percentage points among voters in and around middle age, and 8 percent with voters above 65. If those trends continue, he’ll lose.

Obama, His reputation aside, is not a formidable candidate. The “formidable” part has to do with His skills, and His strength profile is actually exceedingly narrow and comes down to a singular specialty: He can make things look like things they really aren’t.

People who specialize in this do not become stronger as they remain in the limelight, because as they are better known, the one candle-flame that illuminates their entire suite of useful skills is gradually extinguished. Yes, He does have an air of “sophistication” about Him, or something that looks like sophistication. But at this point, why should we even bother to debate whether there’s something there or not? Why even go there?

The sophistication is being used to sell us things we would not otherwise buy, because these are things that are bad for us. It is not being used for any other purpose. Is it? Doesn’t it all come down to an ability to close sales with us that otherwise would not happen — by arresting a rational evaluation of the cost/benefit of the sale that would otherwise take place? Isn’t that all Obama has to offer when you get down to it?

Oh yeah, he’s black. Half-black. And He’s unusually brazen about His hostility against the free enterprise system, more likely than most past Presidents to sell us on legislation and executive orders that attack it. But like I said before, “Can’t we find a black President who isn’t so communist-ey?” His unusually consistent predilection for backing policies that inflict harm on the free enterprise system, comes from that one magical superpower to make things look like the opposite of what they truly are. So in a way, that doesn’t count. And having black skin has turned out to be nothing more than a gimmick to shut up dissenting voices by calling them racist. Which, when you think about it, is also derivative of that one special superpower.

Our First Holy President has only one thing to offer us, and more and more among us are waking up to the fact that it’s a toxic thing. Generally, voters don’t “un-figure-out” things. So when I hear this talk about “The Republicans are dead unless they can nominate someone who can take on OBAMA!”, lately I have begun to tune out. It’s not like picking out the right rocket launcher to take out King Kong. From what I’m seeing here, transparency is key. Obama has a shot against anyone who arrives and says “I have a plan…trust me…I’ll get this economy back on its feet, but I’m not going to tell you how. You need to elect me to find out what I’m going to do.”

But if the challenger is open and honest, and says something like “Businesses aren’t hiring because we’ve made it evil to make money, they don’t trust the government, they don’t want to make themselves into targets…I intend to change all that” — Obama can order the moving truck right there & then.

He’s poison to our economy, we can all feel it, more and more people are willing to admit it. None of that is going to change. America’s history of re-electing Presidents who are bad for the economy, is thin, threadbare, practically non-existent. Don’t get cocky? Anybody who bothers to vote is as un-cocky as they need to be. This guy’s toast.

[…] Polling Numbers Point to Obama’s Defeat in 2012 […]
- Saturday Linkaround | Proof Positive!! | 11/27/2010 @ 11:52

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Polling Numbers Point to Obama’s Defeat in 2012Friday, November 26th, 2010

Polling Numbers Point to Obama’s Defeat in 2012
Friday, November 26th, 2010