Jennifer Rubin v. the Law of Gravity

You know I've heard this before. And its' never true

Obama’s Centrism Could Drive the GOP Out of Business

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/obamas-centrism-could-drive-the-gop-out-of-business/2/

See. Obama isn;t such a wild eyed liberal after all. He might cut a few taxes in the middle of a recession, He has dinner with Republican chatterers. He might have to do something with Iran after his talking to them accomplished nothing.

So?

Ms. Rubin assumes that the nearly one billion dollars invested in the Obama campaign will result in no return on investment to the Bush hating left.  Perhaps the prudent Obama has simply decided to delay dividend payments until the 2nd Quarter. And that will obviously ignite opposition once the Left gets something tangible in return. If Ms. Rubin expects Obama to stiff his supporters for four years; good luck---I doubt they will react better than conservative Republicans after Bush's second term.

Ms. Rubin also grossly underestimates the impact a Supreme Court nomination or presently dormant issues like card check and immigration "reform" are likely to have on the body politics. Did anyone inside the Beltway see the Dubai Ports firestorm coming? Politics is full of the "unknown unknowns" and the political environment is full of dry kindling.

But what of the "known knowns". We know that Obama ran as centrist a campaign as he possibly could in the midst of the worst political environment for a Republican presidential candidate since 1964.  He had a huge financial edge and immensely favorable press. And he got 52%.

Are the rest of America suddenly going to change jerseys?

History shows that gravity beats strategy.  Gravity is a force of nature; strategy is a product of man.

Every president has achieved massive 65% approval in recent history

And every one of them has fallen to earth, some...such as both Bushes, arguably into the basement.

Now there were some bad decisions that caused this to happen, and talented opposition. But when it happens all the time; well, it's beyond that.      

Let's look at some numbers from Polling Report and see where gravity is likely to take Barack Obama

While the "wrong direction" percentage has declined in some polls since the Presidential election from the 75%-80% range; the latest poll shows we are still 26% right-59% wrong; leading one to perceive the "right direction" at the moment strongly correlates with strong Democratic party identification. Obamamania may not have permeated as deeply as its advocates hoped.

And levels of consumer confidence are still at the lowest sustained levels seen ithe decade; even after the Obama election.

The initial poll results for Obama are quite positive. But some internals might lead one to think there are some "bitter" people still out there. 

54% said they were "extremely" or "quite" confident that  "Barack Obama has the right policies and goals to be President of the United States"  45% did not have such confidence.

35% said Obama was "very likely" to "bring real change to the United States"  39% said it was "somewhat likely" or "not that likely".

So it appears most of the McCain voters still harbor doubts Obama will succeed or do the right thing.

Now back to gravity. A President cannot permanently defy gravity. If the environment is poor; no matter how nice a guy he is or how many past achievements he has , he will fall to the "earth" of the public mood.

GHW Bush looked invulnerable in the wake of the Gulf War; but it took a relatively mild recession to leave him with the lowest percentage an incumbent president received in 80 years. And the GW Bush years had some spikes during the GWOT, but only the Rove campaign in '04 produced  some stability; post Katrina the slide was on.

Back to the history of gravity. One truly skilled leader succeeded in changing gravity. he actually rebounded from his low point a year or so post-election to achieve a huge landslide re-election. Indeed, he got up from a political level that looked fatally debilitating.

That was Ronald Reagan. And it took 3.5 million net new jobs in 1983 (including an amazing 1.1M new jobs in September 1983) and 3.9 million in 1984 to achieve this rebound.  (Note also, the 1980's era labor force was much smaller; it's increased since from 100M to 145M' Obama would ned to add 5M + net new annual jobs to equal this) 

Look for Obama's ratings to fall to earth if the economy does not  rebound promptly.  And if Obama can't change the landscape as Reagan did, he might have a much rougher time getting re-elected than the star struck Beltway media thinks.

Of course if a overstuffed shortsighted stimulus bill doesn;t generate sustained growth, well the Bushes have set the precedent former Presidents are always welcome at the White House.

One final thing.  Even Ronald Reagan couldn't drive the Democrats out of business; nor FDR the Republicans. Maybe Ms. Rubin ought to ascertain how if those icons of American politics left the opposition standing how Barack Obama is going to outdo them.