Predicting the Presidential Election
(in 2012, that is)

March 30, 2008

A lot of time is spent on discerning the results of upcoming presidential elections; the more uncertain the outcome, the greater the divining. I think we can pretty much move on to speculating about the 2012 presidential vote.

Who do you think will be President McCain’s opponent in 2012?

What’s that? You say we forgot 2008? Well, no, we don’t have to wait until November to know how it will turn out. We don’t even have to wait until we know who the Democrat nominee is (my prediction in January was that it would be Clinton and I’m sticking with that). The Democrats have already lost the Presidential election.

First of all, the Republicans have a heckuva nominee. He has leadership experience. He has principles. His character has been tested and proven. He has confronted some of the more complex issues of the day (e.g., immigration and the impact of moneyed interests on elections). At a time of war, he has actually fought in a war. He is not an ideologue; he works with other people to solve problems not make ideas a reality. Extremists don’t like him. He has a grasp of many issues and has dealt with them all in one way or another through the years.

Shall I go on? Let me name the negatives … He seems tired. He’s 71 years old, but judging by his mother, he has good genes. His “70” is the new “50”. It’s not an age thing, but he still seems way too low key. I think “low energy” and “low key” will sell. They will sell because he is real. He is not a phony. There’s no act. There’s no hype. There’s no coaching. There’s no image. It’s just him.

McCain supports the war. That will not sink him in November, either. He will fight this war to win, but he will not fight it for nothing and people know that. He will not waste lives and resources just to cling stubbornly to a foreign policy without an outcome. He lived through that sort of thing forty years ago. His staying in Iraq is not the same as Bush’s staying in Iraq.

McCain is not liked by what people call the “right-wing”. So what. He’s not liked because, as I said above, he is not an ideologue. That will cost him a little in voter turnout (although not if Clinton is the nominee), but he will gain that back and more with his popularity with unaffiliated voters. For every vote he loses because some don’t like his immigration bill, he will win thee times that in Latinos who respect what he has done. For every First Amendment purist who wails at his campaign finance reform legislation, there are two good government types who will fill in the arrow pointing to his name on the ballot.

And his opponent? It does not matter if it will be Hilary Clinton or Barack Obama. At this point, neither one of them has a chance of beating John McCain.

Hilary Clinton is … how do I say this diplomatically? … well, a liar. We didn’t just find that out. We’ve known it ever since the day that she “suddenly” found records from the Rose law firm for whom she worked in Arkansas, records about controversial land dealings, records that had been requested by the law, in her private White House quarters after having denied for a couple of years that she knew about them or their whereabouts. I wish I could say that she lied about her trip to Bosnia and her being under sniper fire there. I don’t think she was lying. It’s scarier than that. I think that she really believes it happened that way because she wants it to have happened that way.

Pointing out the fact that Clinton is a liar and possibly deluded only speaks to the point that she should not win. I would also say that she cannot win. There are too many people with a definite opinion about her. There are no “undecideds” and the ones who view her unfavorably dominate. There is no room for her to grow support; she has hit a ceiling, glass or not.

Barack Obama will be the 21 st century George McGovern. That’s a little overstated because Obama will win more than Massachusetts and the District of Columbia - but not that many more. McGovern was trounced even though he ran with a promise to withdraw US troops from a war that was vastly more unpopular than the Iraq war could ever be. McGovern was characterized, somewhat unjustly, as being out of the mainstream of the United States. The Democrat Party itself is not a mainstream party anymore, and Obama is not in the mainstream of the Democrats! He will be characterized as such, and it will be true.

Not only has the Democrat Party already lost the 2008 election, the Democrat Party will come away from this election cycle weakened. Like the Republicans, the Democrats will never gain strength until they abandon ideology and get back to solving problems.

No matter if the Democrat nominee is Clinton or Obama, McCain wins in November 54% to 46%. Now, who was that you say will run against President McCain in 2012?

Copyright 2008. Fred Sneesby. All Rights Reserved.