Countdown To Exiting

It's about a year from Inauguration Day. Could this be Barack Obama's last year in office?

The campaign for the South Carolina Republican presidential primary, taking place today, has taken numerous twists and turns. Newt Gingrich had turned the tide against Mitt Romney only to face new questions about his fidelity in his previous marriage - and then turned it into an asset by throwing the issue back at CNN's John King during a debate after King brought it up. Mitt Romney still won't release his tax returns, thinking that Republican voters don't care about how much money he makes and confusing that with their interest in how much money he pays. President Obama must be watching this with glee, hoping that the Republicans protract their nomination fight to the point where the eventual nominee is so weakened and bloodied, it will be an easy victory for the Democrats in November.

No, it won't. And the Democrats could still lose. Some pundits have noted that the eventual winner of the Republican presidential nomination could be toughened up enough to take the fight to Obama hard, just as Obama was toughened up by his long fight against Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. A more apt comparison might be the internecine warfare between Walter Mondale and Gary Hart in the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination contest that eventually weakened Mondale in his campaign against President Reagan that fall, as both Mondale did and the eventual 2012 Republican presidential nominee will go against an incumbent. But even that comparison has problems. Reagan was overseeing an improvement in the economy and renewed faith in the country's standing in 1984. Obama is currently overseeing little of either, and his mealy-mouthed campaign commercial touting his clean energy initiatives in response to a Koch brothers-funded onslaught is the textbook example of starting off on the wrong foot.

One year from now, the winner of the November election will be sworn in, and don't be surprised if Obama is an outgoing President swearing under his breath. His approval rating is at 44 percent, the economy isn't growing fast enough in 2012, like it was in 1984, the chances of Democrats regaining the House and holding onto the Senate are statistically difficult, and one of these Republican candidates could indeed very well be in a strong position going into the fall campaign. The clearest evidence that Obama could (will?) still lose is that his opponents obviously want to get rid of him more than his supporters (just as obviously) want to keep him.