Castro weighs in on the Republican candidates:
"The selection of a Republican candidate for president of that globalized and encompassing empire is, I say this seriously, the greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been heard. "
Heh.
RichVR
1822
That’s essentially what Mike Lupica wrote yesterday in the NY Daily News.
A: Castro says that every four years. Fuck that fuck.
B: The Republican strategists aren’t going to put their best and brightest into a losing race. People are sick and tired of the Republicans at this point, and no one is going to win an election against a tall, handsome incumbent who REALLY good at campaigning. This year the put up some pity candidates or guys that they owe so that, in four years, they can put up a young minority candidate who doesn’t have the stink of a presidential bid loss all over him.
They know that this isn’t their year, why waste your best arrows n a target you can’t hit?
In four years, when the country is in better shape and people swing more right because they are ready to be afraid again that they might lose their stuff to “them” we’ll elect a Republican who can start the cycle all over. This year it’s “Four more years”
Dejin
1824
You are way overestimating Obama’s chances and heavily underestimating the impact of the economy on elections.
If the economy craters – say for example if Europe completely collapses or Israel decides to attack Iran – Obama is going to be in big trouble. As it is, unless it gets better I think even Romney will give him a close run and the Democrats could very well lose this thing. Let’s see how badly damaged Romney is by the time he gets through the primaries.
A compelling Republican non-whacko candidate would have had a very good chance beating Obama.
Honestly the “OMG the infighting in the primaries is killing us/them!!” thing is repeated every four years and, every four years, it rarely has any effect whatsoever.
If the Republicans thought they had any serious chance of winning they’d have put forth better candidates and been a little less generous in giving the Democrats talking points.
Aleck
1827
2012 feels very much like a replay of 2004. It’s the incumbent’s race to lose. A strong challenger would be a good thing, but the race is really a referendum on the incumbent.
JeffL
1828
Who do you think are “The Republicans” who are holding back the good candidates? And who are these good candidates?
I think that, if the GOP had a really great candidate who was interested in running, they’d love to have him. A great candidate could beat Obama. He has very little to run on beyond “The other guys really suck and made it hard to get anything done.” As some analysts have noted, he can’t really run on his one big accomplishment, the health care/insurance reform bill, because it is not, in its current form, extremely popular. Why that is is beside the point - it just won’t be something that will get him re-elected. Unemployment is projected by just about every economic source to stay right about where it is, so it will be (probably) in the 8 percent range, which is extremely high, and also means the pain will still be out there. Any really good candidate could run a very good challenge against a president in this situation.
The Hope and Change thing that caught the imagination of so many (I’m raising my hand as one of those) isn’t going to be anywhere near as compelling this time around. He is vulnerable, and the only thing that is going to allow him to keep his job is no strong candidates running against him. Hell, even Carville said that if Jeb Bush’s last name wasn’t Bush he’d probably beat Obama.
Dejin
1829
Keep in mind that during the time frame Republicans were deciding whether or not to explore Primary bids Obama had just taken down Osama Bin Laden. This was followed by the Gabby Giffords incident which Obama got high marks for his speech. Obama’s approval ratings were at a local maximum.
While it would be technically possible for someone to get in the race now, it would be difficult to raise money and build organization on such short notice.
What yab…yib…yip…fuck…ydejin said.
I forget, what’s the reelection rate for Presidents? Bush’s approval rating for the 2004 election was about the same as Obama’s is now and he wasn’t nearly as good a campaigner.
I still think it’s the economy, stupid. Carter lost in '80 because inflation was out of control and Bush Sr. lost in '92 because the economy was bad. Those are the only sitting Presidents to lose in a long time (unless you count Ford, who was never elected to the office in the first place), and they lost because of the economy.
We have high unemployment and growth is still slow. It’s not a good combination for Obama, though it’s not the disaster it was a year ago, at least.
While I know people have short memories, we also have republicans running exclusively on returning to the policies that got us here in the first place and gutting consumer protection. Obama might not have swerved the car off the train tracks fully, but these guys want to go right back on them with the train coming at us.
Doing the same thing over and expecting a different result is the definition of being a modern Republican.
Dejin
1834
The American people have very short memories and in don’t spend enough time analyzing before voting. Look at the 2010 election where all the Republicans got put back in office. That was only 2 years out from watching Republican policies put the entire country down the dumper. What makes you think if they can’t remember 2 years out that Republican policies are a disaster that they’ll remember 4 years out?
Unless the economy gets better this will be a tight race.
I’m sure some of you remember the ABB (anyone but Bush) movement of 2004, where you were supposed to support whoever the Dems put up because it wasn’t the hated incumbent. That movement helped produced John Kerry, a colourless bureaucrat who no one besides his own family supported with any enthusiasm. It looks like the GOP is heading down the same doomed path with Romney, a man who is one part the boss you hated and one part the guy who sold you the used car which broke down a few weeks later. They may hate Obama, but they don’t like Romney. Unless the economy does tank, I think Obama will crush him.
It was always Anyone But Romney. He’s soulless, big-money, flip-flop, amongst many other things (omg Mormon!). Unfortunately, for the GOP, he’s going to end up running against Obama. Once the stream of attack ads start floating about re: his time at Bain (hell, it’s already started) you might as well stick a fork in him.
Romney made that infamous comment that went something like this too didn’t he?
[INDENT]Romney: Corporations are people too my friend, who do you think gets the money from them?
Crowd (yelling): You![/INDENT]
Yeah, but the 2004 race was pretty tight. Kerry was leading in a lot of polls right up to the election.
The 2004 election was a bit like this one. You had the upstart Howard Dean getting off to a good start, sort of like Newt, but then getting flattened by the party establishment who embraced the souless guy. It would have been interesting if Hillary had run in 2004. The A team candidates don’t like to run against a sitting president, though.
