Based on today's political landscape, it looks like President Obama will win a second term.
As did Clinton in 1996, in large part he'll have Newt Gingrich to thank, assuming Gingrich wins the Republican nomination. And he probably will.
For those who remember the 1994 off year Republican landslide and its popular Contract With America, it's Newt and the gang who then gave Bill Clinton the opening to win reelection in 1996. To put it bluntly, Newt snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. My bet is that he'll do it again in 2012.
That's why I'm betting on Obama in 2012. Here's my reasoning.
Obama will oppose the Republican nominee in the general election for President.
His opponent will most likely be Gingrich as most Republicans will favor Newt over Mitt Romney. While most of those conservative voters don't much like either Gingrich or Romney, of the two less-than-popular Republicans Newt seems to them to be the lesser of the two evils. That will prove to be a serious mistake for those who want Obama defeated in 2012.
In the end, "Progressive" Obama will rather easily defeat "Conservative" Gingrich as Newt will self destruct somehow. And if by some miracle he doesn't self destruct, he will still lose since moderates and independent voters won't rush to support and vote for him even if they don't like Barack Obama.
Gingrich can't win the 2012 election. That's my opinion.
The electorate is, taken as a whole, much more moderate than either Obama or Gingrich appears to be. Yet the selection of presidential candidates is largely determined by the party faithful, meaning that the moderate or centrist Romney will lose the nomination to Gingrich, presumed by Republican party faithful to be the more right wing candidate.
But here's the best part about "Conservative" Newt. Newt isn't even a free market conservative, at least if we can believe what he says. He opposes capitalism if that helps him secure the nomination and sadly, it probably will. In fact, he's just another old time Washington pol, school teacher and and political hack. Like Obama he's never worked in the private sector.
And here's why I say he's against capitalism and free enterprise, assuming he tells the truth when he speaks.
Gingrich is now attacking Romney because Romney was responsible for cutting private sector jobs while a principal at the private sector company Bain Capital. Someone should tell Newt that's what happens in competitive markets. In other words, unpleasant things like layoffs and plant closures are inevitable in a competitive free market society. And by the way, that's why Americans have the highest standard of living on the planet.
Joseph Schumpeter long ago labeled the process creative destruction. To create we must first destroy. I would have thought a genius and historian would have known that.
And Newt is also purportedly a conservative. In my view, he's simply another arrogant politician seeking election, as is Obama. Maybe they're tied for first in the smartest man in the room contest. Who cares?
So Gingrich is a self appointed leader of America's elite intelligentsia for sure, but he's evidently not such a smart student and teacher of American history. Based on what he says, our American history is based on a system of free enterprise that he doesn't understand. At least not how and where the wealth creation takes place. In the private sector.
People like to say that 2012 will be a pivotal vote for either big or small government. Unfortunately, it won't be any such thing.
We have big government now, and it looks like we will continue to experience its continuing growth until we can no longer borrow the money to continue the current welfare state in place.
Otherwise the presidential candidates would be talking and Congress and the administration would be deciding about taking the steps necessary to increase American productivity, American wealth creation, American entitlements affordability (such as social security, medicare, medicaid and public school funding) and other important matters.
In other words, we'd decide to start paying for the government we already have or we'd take the necessary steps to cut it back to one we can afford.
But according to Gingrich and Obama, there is something wrong with the idea of creative destruction, free market competition and the occasional accompanying job cutbacks associated therewith. On that the apparent 2012 presidential nominees seem to agree.
So how much will it really matter if Obama wins reelection and Gingrich goes down to defeat again? Not much, I'd say.
Stay tuned and hope that I'm wrong about all this. I know I do. Hope I'm wrong, that is.
Thanks. Bob.
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