Predictions and the 2012 Presidential Election

Ok, since it has started, let’s talk about the Presidential 2012 Election in the US. Of course, making any sort of prediction about a contest that is still well over a year away is always going to be fraught with difficulty and risk, but here’s my headline prediction: Obama will win. Comfortably.

Sure, his first term has hardly been covered in glory, and those who saw him as something like the second coming of the Messiah have had a rough fall to earth. But it has also been lacking in disaster, and has arguably gone better than the first terms of both Bush Junior and Clinton (both of whom won comfortable re-elections). Furthermore, the remarkable electoral machine that took him from little known Senator to President is gearing up again. Every day now until November 2012 the President will be campaigning by default. Every time he appears on the TV it will be reinforcing the concept of Obama as President. In the meantime, little known or compromised Republicans will be vying to become the nominee. They will be fighting not only against each other but also against the awesome power of incumbency.

Plus, I rather suspect that while the narrative of the last Presidential Election was that it was an exciting, unpredictable contest, the narrative will be that this coming on is a boring, predictable race. Given what the polls are showing, Obama will coast to re-election. The stories will be about what is going wrong with the Republican campaign, why it isn’t gaining traction, why it isn’t going anywhere. Like the Kerry campaign or the Dole campaign.

There is always the risk of a rogue element, however. A third party candidate, like Anderson in 1980 or Perot in 1992, could make a difference. As could a serious scandal involving Obama. But the one rogue element that won’t make a difference to the outcome is Sarah Palin. Far from guaranteed the nomination if she runs (an anybody-but-Palin campaign looks like a distinct possibility), she also simply won’t connect with the majority of moderate Americans who make someone the President. Sure, she has passionate followers in the Christian Right, but she is too divisive a figure (and too intellectually shallow) to be a credible candidate in a national election. History has shown that the Presidential candidates from the extreme wings of either party tend to crash and burn – see McGovern and Goldwater. Palin would join them in the background of the history books. Which is why Palin should seriously consider whether it is actually in their best interests to run. After all, she has her own little niche in US politics. A defeat in a Presidential election would tarnish her image, particularly since that would leave her record as involved in 2 Presidential campaigns, and being on the losing ticket in both of them.

Change will come; it will come in 2016, when Obama can’t run again.

The Tea Party, Palin and The Republican Nomination

Some interesting commentary from Mark Mardell on the Tea Party successes in Republican primaries:

Both the polls and senior Republicans suggest that Tea Party favourite Christine O'Donnell hasn't a hope of winning the seat. But the Republican voters wanted her as their candidate nonetheless.

So when people tell you that Sarah Palin will not win the nomination in 2012 because she cannot beat President Obama, remember it is grassroots Republicans who make that decision, not party strategists or commentators.

There's a curious tension between the Tea Party and the Republicans; there is a sense in which each wants to co-opt the other, despite the fact that they are not actually compatible. I reckon this struggle will continue right up to the 2012 election; however, I don't doubt that the Republican party will end up absorbing the Tea Party movement. Which is a shame, but seems to be the way these things go.

Mardell's right, of course - if the Republican grass-roots want an unelectable candidate, then they can nominate one. And this may well be the way in which Palin wins the nomination in 2012. Yet the more I think about, the more I would sound a note of caution about assuming Palin will be the 2012 Republican nominee. While it is true that both parties in the US have nominated inept candidates (Goldwater and McGovern spring to mind), they have noted the result of this - landslide defeat. And you can see recent examples of how even the party faithful have ultimately decided to choose the credible candidate over the unelectable. That's why the likes of Howard Dean and Mike Huckabee - despite being the favourite for a substantial minority of their respective parties - were ultimately passed over in favour of more mainstream (and perhaps less inspiring) candidates. Despite the lack of a credible alternative at the moment, I suspect that this is what will happen with Palin; in the end, the party will almost certainly choose a more credible candidate than Palin because, ultimately, they want to beat Obama - not hand him a landslide re-election.