The Black Liberal Boomer Blog

In Pundit World, particularly TV Pundit World it seems, the common wisdom appears to be that if President Obama doesn't somehow manage to accomplish the near impossible task of  reducing the level of unemployment from its current level of 9.1 percent down to somewhere in the 7 percent range, then his chances for re-election are seriously at risk because no president since Depression-era President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has ever won a second term with unemployment higher than 7.2 percent.

And in even semi-normal times I believe the persistence of stubbornly high unemployment rates creeping into the 2012 campaign season could very well be enough to cut short Obama's residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But these are hardly semi-normal times, as most of us are well aware. As an excellent article in the Washington Monthly points out, it is far too simplistic to assume that Obama's presidency is at risk simply on the basis of that statistic alone. Not that it is irrelevant, but context does matter:

From the June 2, 2011 'Political Animal' a regular Washington Monthly column  by Steve Benen:

No president since FDR has won with a high unemployment rate because no president since FDR has had to govern at a time of a global economic crisis like the Great Depression or the Great Recession. The U.S. has seen plenty of downturns over the last eight decades, but financial collapses are fairly rare, produce far more severe conditions, and take much longer to recover from.

In other words, Obama has a good excuse. Of course the unemployment rate won’t be below 7.2%. Under the circumstances and given the calamity Obama inherited, that’s impossible.

The more relevant question is what Americans are willing to put up with. In 1934, during FDR’s first midterms, the unemployment rate was about 22%. The public was thrilled — it had come down considerably from 1932. By 1936, when FDR was seeking a second term, the unemployment rate was about 17%. How can an incumbent president win re-election with a 17% unemployment rate? Because things were getting better, not worse.

Now add to that the current anemic field of Republican challengers and, well, I mean...

It's true, nothing is guaranteed, and politics is a crazy game where what appears to be certain one minute can be seriously in doubt the next. That's because there are so many variables, so many moving parts. So no, I'm still not willing to go out on a limb and say Obama is guaranteed re-election even if unemployment is 20 percent because, as much fun as that would be to toss that out there, it would pretty much be the type of cheap political theater that passes for commentary in some quarters. Not that I'm always above cheap political commentary, because it really can be a lot of fun, but now's not the time.

So here's the thing, as I see it; I find it both amazing and amusing that hardly any commentators  on any of the usual shows ever reference the near historic weakness of the Republican challengers when discussing the dire prospects for Obama's re-election. It's all about how unless Obama gets those job numbers up, his days are done. But even when you factor in the disenfranchisement of the purist progressive branch of the Democrats, the possibility that there may be far fewer younger voters turning out this time around because the rock star veneer is now gone, the rabid Tea Party and their antics, etc., I must confess I'm still not quite feeling the jitters everyone keeps telling me I should feel just yet.

Let's start with Mitt Romney. Leading members of his own party, including John Boehner, are leading an effort to defeat him. His supporters make the term 'lukewarm' seem like a gross exaggeration. No passion nowhere. Lots of dough, but no fire to make that dough rise. And if the Tea Party are the new gate keepers, then it's a given that they will never accept the man who designed the model for Obama's health care plan because the debt ceiling so-called 'negotiations' make it plain that these folks don't compromise on not one damned thing. I hear ya knockin, but ya can't come in.

Then there's Michelle Bachmann. Sure she's the Tea Party mouthpiece, the Tea Party has the Republican organization by the throat, and I suspect there's a better than even chance she will win Iowa in the primaries. And if she goes on to win New Hampshire from there, which is essentially in Mitt's back yard, then Mitt's campaign may be in serious need of that health care he can't seem to recall having anything to do with. Because when you're on life support, that life support involves rather serious health care measures. But even if Bachmann plucks those two political plums from the campaign tree, or even if she rolls all the way into the nomination as Queen Victorious, her chances against Obama are slim at best. The Tea Party may have the House Republicans by the throat, but any number of polls have shown that the rest of America has pretty much grown sick and tired of them. True, Obama's numbers are struggling too, but he's the incumbent, not to mention the incumbent who just broke fundraising  records last quarter. What happens next quarter will be very telling.

And then there's Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, Herman Cain. Newt Gingrich, and some other guy. Not much to say there, and enuf said. Oh,  and then there's  the apparent possibility that Texas Gov. Rick Perry may decide to jump in the deep end, even though he sees no problem inviting lunatic preachers to join him on stage at a prayer rally for America. One of those lunatic preachers, Pastor John Hagee,  believes Hitler and the Holocaust were God's way of bringing Jews back to Israel. Remember this, Rick; God don't like ugly, and he's not too fond of being mocked either. Look it up the next time you're skimming the Cliff Notes version of the bible.

The thing to remember is that just because folks are mad and broke doesn't mean they're stupid. Sure Obama has made his fair share of missteps, and he has for sure worn out his welcome with the adult in the room business, let alone his over-willingness to negotiate with folks who hate his guts. But in the end he is still so far ahead of every last one of the Republican challengers in his potential ability to manage this crisis that it's not even a fair fight. Now if there was a Ronald Reagan in the pack? Or even a George H.W. Bush? A Nixon? Someone of that ability and political savvy who was also in good with the Tea Party and knew how to manage them? Then I'd be scared to death because then Obama might need a handwritten letter from God accompanied by a few thunderbolts to get re-elected if he didn't manage to significantly turn things around by early next year. But with this current crop of midgets and anklebiters?

Maybe if somebody turned on the soundtrack to Jaws...

This is being cross-posted in Jack and Jill Politics and Detroit Life

Yo Boehner. Who's your daddy?

Why, I do believe his name be Rush. Limbaugh, that is.

I'm guessing this may not come as much of a surprise to those who have been paying attention, but just in case there was any lingering doubt as to which tail is wagging which dog, House Speaker John Boehner's frantic rush to appear on the Rush Limbaugh Show yesterday should lay to rest any doubt who's calling the Republican dance tune and who's doing the dancing. After a day or so of rumors that a possible debt ceiling deal had been reached between Obama and the House Republicans, Democrats and Republicans both began to fret that perhaps they had been sold out. But I'm not aware of any Democrat who felt compelled to run himself over on the way to the Big House to explain hisself to Massa Boss.

Speaker Boehner, however, wasted no time dialing Boss Hogg himself to plead for time to lay himself prostrate before the right-wingnut masses and assure them all that their fearless leaders in Congress had not caved in to the Godless black Muslim president who eats white Christian babies in his breakfast cereal every morning. Boehner had to let the wingnut masses know that their leaders had not disobeyed orders, had not strayed from the plantation, had not in any way dared to employ any brain cells threatening to incite independent thought and reason, not even for the sake of the nation. They all still have their lit matches in hand and they are all still prepared to burn the house down on cue.

Assuming that most readers of JJP are not regular Rush listeners, I bravely entered enemy territory on your behalf to retrieve a partial transcript of the interview. Feel free to click here and read the whole thing for yourself if you're feeling lucky. Do you? Do you feel lucky...?

From The Rush Limbaugh Show:

RUSH: We're so happy to have with us the Speaker of the House, John Boehner. I'm glad that we had a chance to talk to you here, Mr. Speaker, because people are confused with all of these leaks as to what's going on.

SPEAKER BOEHNER: Well, Rush, there is no deal. No deal publicly. No deal privately. There is absolutely no deal. Our focus --

RUSH: Are you talking about a deal, though?

SPEAKER BOEHNER: Pardon me?

RUSH: Are you talking about a deal in secret?

SPEAKER BOEHNER: Our focus right now is getting the Senate to follow us in the House and pass Cut, Cap, and Balance. I believe that we've got to act to prevent a default and to prevent a downgrade of our nation's credit rating, and the best way to do that is to enact Cut, Cap, and Balance. But let me be clear: I believe that is the best course of action. I've said all the way along that we've gotta keep the lines of communication open. That's why Leader Cantor and I have talked with Mitch McConnell. We've talked to Nancy Pelosi. We've talked to the president. We talked about fallback options if in fact Cut, Cap, and Balance does go down; and I do think it's our obligation to have a fallback plan if that doesn't work.

RUSH: Well, but that's what everybody is worried about: What is the fallback plan? A congressional aide is out there today saying that the deal's been struck. He's unnamed, he's on Fox, he's saying, "It's $3 trillion of cuts with no tax revenue." National Journal says three trillion in cuts with "insignificant" tax revenues. So a lot of people out here are of the opinion that Obama is the one who ought to be caving. He's the one that doesn't have a plan. He's forcing you to compromise with yourself. He's done great damage to the economy, and people want it to stop.

Who's your daddy, Boehner? Go ahead. Say it. Who's your daddy?

By now it should be painfully obvious to most reasonable Republicans that they have allowed the inmates to run the insane asylum that has become the new headquarters for the Republican Party. And unless they take action yesterday to snatch back the reins of control from the rabid Tea Party crazies whose eyes roll around in their head like loose marbles (first clue that sanity no longer resides between their ears), then God only knows when the Republicans will have a cohesive, legitimate organization again. And I suspect even God may be scratching his head at how a group of people who reference His name so often you'd think they were on His staff could screw things up so badly.

The way Obama has played - and continues to play - the Republican leadership like a well-tuned violin is exposing how incompetence, stupidity and, frankly, racism, has been placed under the hood in place of an engine that might actually work. For months leading up to this precipice of the debt ceiling negotiations, the Republicans bragged and thumped their chests, claiming that they were going to bring POTUS in line and force him to swallow whatever they chose to shove down his throat. But now, all of the sudden, they're the ones choking on their own vomit and searching desperately for a cure to an ailment that they themselves created. I might say the same thing for certain progressive groups who continue to work hand-in-hand with the Tea Party to discredit and dismiss POTUS despite his increasingly apparent ability to out think and outmaneuver them at every turn.

You may have already seen the recent fundraising numbers detailed in an earlier JJP post by rikyrah which shows that Obama and the Democratic Party is raising so much money so fast from so many sources (average individual  supporter donation of  $69 adding up to a last quarter haul of $86 million, including more than 200,000 new contributors who didn't donate in 2008) that POTUS has already broken his previously monumental fundraising record. This, of course, brings into question the oft-heard refrain that Obama is losing his base of supporters because we have all, apparently, completely lost faith in the man and have no trust whatsoever in where he is leading us.

Really?

So if that's the case then where is all this loot coming from? The Tea Party? The same report indicates that 98% of all the money raised came from donations of $250 or less, which means it is not coming from some deep pocket fat cat with a checklist of what he expects in return. Do you have any idea how many $250 donations it takes to reach $86 million? It's 344,000. Any idea how many $69 donations it takes to reach $86 million? It's 1,246,376.8, so let's call it 1,246, 377 since I've never met a .8 person before.

So the total number of grassroots donors is somewhere between 1.2 million and 344,000, and likely closer to the 1.2 million mark. That is one hell of a lot of individual donors for just one quarter, especially to support a man who is supposedly so wrong for America.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, you've got this going on:

From the July 12, 2011 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Six fake Democratic candidates put up by the Republican Party to buy time for Republican state senators subject to recalls accomplished that job Tuesday, but none of them did the unexpected and knocked off a real Democrat.

Candidates backed by the Democratic Party won all six Senate primary elections, all but one of them by substantial amounts. They'll all go on to face the Republican incumbents on Aug. 9, in an attempt by Democrats to regain control of the state Senate and put the brakes on Gov. Scott Walker's agenda.

I bring this up only as the most potent example of  the prairie fire that I believe is going on across the country in areas that had been seized by the Republicans just eight months ago in November 2010. Republicans not only overplayed their hand, they misread the hand they had been dealt. To compound matters, those Republicans on the Hill who actually had some concept of what the real score was chose to seal their own lips with masking tape and let the inmates run the asylum, I guess crossing their fingers and hoping that maybe crazy might get mistaken for lucky.

Not this time.