Six Reasons Barack Obama is Still the Odds-on Favorite in 2012
Less than six months after he took office, Barack Obama was labeled a "lame duck" president by a few overeager conservative commentators. Before his first year in the White House was up, some nervous liberals began pronouncing their hero more Jimmy Carter than J.F.K. Now, independents are apparently casting gimlet eyes at the president. In a recent Gallup Poll, Obama was losing by 14 points among these swing voters in a 2012 matchup to something called the "generic Republican."
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"The real bad news for the White House in the poll is the continued souring of independents on Obama," wrote Mark Hemingway in The Examiner. "It would be very hard to win re-election if that trend continues." True enough, but why should it continue? History is instructive, it is never static, and to those who believe President Obama will be easy pickings when he runs for re-election, I'd just say, "Wanna bet?"
So with no disrespect intended toward Mark Hemingway, or even Jimmy Carter, that human punching bag of ex-presidents, here are six reasons why the person who occupies the White House on Jan. 21, 2013 is most likely to be ... the man who occupies it now.
Reason 1: There is no such beast as a "generic Republican." To be sure, there will be a GOP presidential nominee, and that person will have a name, a history, a sex, a voting record, and -- unless the Second Coming takes place between now and the GOP convention in the summer of 2012 -- at least some of the normal human frailties. (No, Mitt Romney, despite never having a hair out of place you are not perfect!) In other words, the next Republican nominee will come before the electorate carrying baggage of his own -- or her own – whether that candidate hails from Wasilla, Alaska, or anywhere else in this big wonderful nation of ours.
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