One year, and counting

I already have a headache from the 2012 election cycle and all the rancid rhetoric it has produced. The idea that we’re going to have to endure one more year of this nonsense-talk is something I don’t know if I can endure.

OBAMA: One year from victory?



It’s true. The general election for 2012 will be held one year from Sunday. In exactly one year, we’re going to learn whether the economic downtown that doesn’t want to leave is going to take down the presidency of Barack Obama – or if the Republicans will manage to blow their chance to put “one of their own” in the White House.

I WRITE IT that way because the struggles many people are facing are going to make them inclined to take down whoever they can come Election Day.

Unless there is some turnaround in the economy that is historic in nature, there won’t be much of anything that Obama can take credit for on that front. And that front could be the only one that many people will care about.

Take the last presidency that suffered from this issue – that of George Bush the elder when he ran for re-election in 1992. All the trash that afflicted Bill Clinton’s candidacy should have been enough to take him down.

Yet there were a significant-enough number of people who wanted to vote for Anybody But Bush. Some of those ABB’s went for Texas billionaire H. Ross Perot. But Clinton got more than his share, which led to his victory.

IN THEORY, THE same thing is going to happen to Obama one year from now.

And while one can argue that the economic downturn was caused by the ideological policies of past presidents (such as the former Bush’s son), the fact seems to be that Obama hasn’t been able to break through the ideological hostility to be able to accomplish much of anything to fix the problem.

Yet, a part of me seriously believes that Obama could wind up prevailing a year from now. We could be watching his second victory party, which will not seem as impressive as the first.

Then again, that 2008 election cycle truly was historic in nature. There’s no way he should be expected to match the old enthusiasm – some of which was so naïve in nature that he should not have been expected to live up to their desires.

IT’S JUST THAT I see the harsh ideological nature that the 2012 opposition to Obama has taken. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney turns up as the front-runner in some polls, but usually with overall support that indicates the bulk of Republican partisans want Anybody But Mitt to get the nomination.

The fact that someone as fringe-ish as Herman Cain can continue to linger as a challenger to Romney or Texas Gov. Rick Perry (and in some polls turn up as the leader) makes me seriously think that the GOP is on the verge of picking as its presidential hopeful someone whom the bulk of people in this country will hate even more than they might distrust Obama.

I can’t help but notice that the same polls that show Obama with weak approval ratings usually show members of Congress with approval ratings that are historically awful.

Which means that many of those political people who rant and rage about Barack and want to believe that “real Americans” think just the way they do will find out that real people can’t stand the ideologues either.

WHICH IS WHY I honestly expect to have several migraine headaches throughout the upcoming year. Because an election cycle between people who are hoping to be the least-detested candidate seeking office is NOT going to be the most high-brow of campaigns.

The trash talk we’re going to hear in the upcoming year is going to rise to levels we haven’t heard in the political past. It’ll be uglier than a typical Chicago Cubs season.

You can’t get uglier than that!

  -30-