By J. Randolph Evans
President Barack Obama has officially launched his campaign for
reelection as President of the United States. His budget for his
campaign is one billion dollars.
So far, Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing about the 2012
election – it will be a referendum on the first term of President Obama.
This is not to say that issues like the deficit, spending, gas prices,
unemployment, and foreign wars will not be important. They will. But
those issues will only provide the backdrop for whether Americans want
to rehire President Obama for another four years.
In recent elections, voters rehired Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill
Clinton and George W. Bush. They did not rehire Presidents Jimmy Carter
and George Bush. If successful, President Obama’s reelection strategy
will likely come much closer to President George W. Bush’s 2004
reelection campaign than it will to President Ronald Reagan’s 1984
strategy.
President Reagan’s strategy was simple. He posed one straightforward
question for voters: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
The resounding answer was “four more years.”
Climbing gas prices, high unemployment, multiple foreign wars, and a
growing and dangerously excessive federal debt take the Reagan strategy
off the table. Over two-thirds of Americans believe that the country is
headed in the wrong direction.
Instead, like President George W. Bush, President Obama’s strategy will
likely focus on solidifying his support among various specific voting
groups and building a solid Electoral College base among key states.
For his base, no one questions that President Obama’s support among
African-American voters, unions and Democratic Party activists will be
the bedrock of his 2012 campaign.
From there, he will undoubtedly continue to focus on energizing and
motivating younger voters. With Twitter and Facebook, he hopes to reach
out to younger voters directly. The question is whether these four
groups will be enough.
Republicans point to the 2010 election as evidence that these
constituencies are not enough. Yet, the truth is that these groups did
not vote in the off year election (2010) at the same levels as 2008 or
in the numbers that are expected in 2012. After all, if the same voters
show up in 2012 as in 2010 and no more, then there will be a Republican
Senate and a Republican President along with the Republican House of
Representatives.
In that way, the 2012 Presidential election will be all about voter
turnout. In 2004, President Bush used micro-targeting through
technology and networks to make sure that more of his folks turned out
than Senator John Kerry’s folks. It worked. In 2012, President Obama
will try to do the same.
President Obama does face one additional challenge that President Bush
did not – reapportionment. Basically, as a result of the 2010 Census,
the 538 electoral votes among the various states are re-distributed.
Interestingly, many of the states that President Obama lost in 2008
actually gained electoral votes in the 2012 election with Texas (+4)
leading the way. Other states that he won in 2008 (like New York, Ohio,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Illinois and New Jersey) have lost Electoral
Votes.
Right now, President Obama’s job approval rating is not so good. More
folks disapprove than approve (47% approve / 49% disapprove). If
unemployment remains high, and gas prices continue to rise, these
numbers will only get worse.
Republicans undoubtedly hope that the 2012 election looks more like
1980, when Ronald Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter. Indeed,
voters can expect many more comparisons of the country’s problems today
with the country’s problems in 1980.
Oddly, Republicans could also take a page out of the Bill Clinton
playbook in 1992, when he defeated President George Bush with one simple
theme – “it’s the economy stupid.” President Clinton also used
President Bush’s own words against him to convince some Republican
voters to stay home.
President Bush had said in 1988 “read my lips – no new taxes,” a promise
he did not keep as President. In a similar vein, Barack Obama made a
number of unequivocal campaign pledges in 2008 (like closing Guantanamo
Bay) that he has been unable or unwilling to keep. The question is what
impact will they have on the energy and enthusiasm within his base. The
Guantanamo Bay decision has had more impact among President Obama’s core
supporters than virtually any other decision that he has made.
There are many in both political parties who boast of a 2012 political
blow out. Democrats believe that if their base is properly motivated
(citing actions by the GOP led House), then they will win decisively.
Republicans believe the 2010 election was just the beginning and voters
will complete the sweep in 2012.
If gas prices hit $5.00 per gallon as some experts now predict, there
won’t be enough Democratic voters to target to make a difference.