Obama Whistling Dixie

Even the Los Angeles Times recognizes that President Obama is in political trouble for relection in 2012. Doyle McManus retails the line from the Obama campaign, and then critiques it. Here's the Obama line:

1. He can improve his standing with independent voters by compromising with Republicans
2. He has moved towards the middle
3. Next year's electorate should include more minorities.
4. Obama's a good campaigner with the same team as 2008.

The problems with the Obami scenario are obvious.

1. Indpendents just aren't going to vote 52 percent for Obama like in 2008.
2. Move to the center? Tell that to Boeing and Delta.
3. More minorities? First, the minority turnout is bound to be less. Second, Hispanics will almost certainly deliver a lot less to the Democrats; they are workers, they want a good economy.
4. Same team? Let's face it. The vital team members were the MSM that refused to tell us who Obama was and where he had been. Much as they want to, the MSM just isn't going to be able to deliver in 2012 like in 2008.

Back in the 1960s the media used to blather on endlessly about "credibility" and how President Johnson had lost it over Vietnam. They meant, I suppose, that LBJ had "lied" over Vietnam, or told liberals things they didn't want to hear on Vietnam. But "credibility" means simply that the American people had stopped listening to Lyndon Johnson. That's the problem facing President Obama. Chances are that in 2012 the American people just aren't going to be willing to listen to a word that President Obama and his crack campaign team tell them. As far as they are concerned, the economy is in a recession, and things don't look to be getting much better. It's hard to see that things could get to appear much better by November 2012. Investors Business Daily has the bullet points:

• Jobs: -2 million; Unemployment up 1.5 percent.
• Most long-term unemployed ever.
• US dollar down 12 percent.
• Americans on food stamps up 37 percent.
• Misery Index up 62 percent.
• National Debt up 40 percent.

Candidate Bill Clinton famously ran on the slogan "worst economy in the last 50 years" in the early stage of recovery from a mild recession. But the 2012 Republican nominee doesn't need such fancy footwork. All he or she has to say is "Obama made it worse."