SocraticGadfly: A bump on the road for Obama's re-election

May 05, 2012

A bump on the road for Obama's re-election

I blogged a few weeks ago about a NYT political blog post that showed economic conditions in the second quarter of the fourth year of a first-term president was key to his re-election in a tight race.

It makes sense. Primaries are winding down in the party out of power, people are starting to think about the general election, and they're starting to consider issues.

Well, yesterday's weak jobs report, then, has to be troubling for Obama, even against a weak foe pandering to nutbars, named Mitt Romney.

As I see it, the only chance Obama has to offset this issue,  especially if it should continue into May, is a Harry Truman-type attack, like 1948. But, really, is Dear Leader that type of campaigner? His faux populism so far this year won't fool real progressives, and it may not fool liberal-leaning centrists, either. And, per David Maraniss' new bio of Obama, as excerpted in Vanity Fair, Obama had fled from anything left of centrist liberalism by the time he was looking to move to Chicago.

So, I don't think he has any real populism in him.

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