The Seattle Weekly gets UW political science Prof. Matt Barreto’s take on the 2012 election. (Prof. Barreto is frequently heard on KUOW discussing elections and election results, and he is the director of the Washington Poll.)
Here’s his take on what will happen in Washington state:
“I think in the presidential election Obama will win handily, Cantwell could end up winning by 15 points, and the governor’s race will come down to the wire.”
“In 2008 Gregoire had a pretty sizable win thanks to the huge pro-Obama vote. Obama is likely to be elected by a big margin, but he’s unlikely to have that kind of enthusiasm. And if there’s not a big enthusiasm vote for Obama, McKenna could eek out a win.”
The Inslee—McKenna race will be one of the hottest contests in the country, and the Obama campaign knows it. So don’t be surprised if Obama makes several high-profile visits to Washington state during election season.
Sure…we’re always something of an ATM machine for Democratic candidates. But most importantly, visits by Obama will help generate the enthusiasm needed to put Inslee in the Governor’s mansion.
I think Obama’s chances are wildly overstated, especially after this next week or two when he bows down to the right once again and accepts, once again, every single little demand they make, with out winning one single solitary concession. He has turned his back on everyone to the left of Mitch McConnell and proven himself to be Paul Ryan’s wiling and eager bottom. He may possibly eek out an electoral ‘victory’, but he won’t generate any enthusiasm at all.
When both sides are demoralized and neither side sounds all that great you tend to get closer elections. If things continue on like they have been, the Dems will pull off wins by a couple of percentage points.
Inslee and Cantwell might be able to brand themselves as standouts and a way forward and win by decent margins.
Obama’s going to have to stop governing as a Republican if he expects to generate any enthusiasm from the kind of people who write checks to Democratic candidates!
I gave last time… and I’m so disappointed that I’m more likely to ask for a refund than to give again.
We desperately need a 4th Party, like the Tea Party, to hold those in office accountable to Progressive principles. There is no accountability and our folks are a bunch of sheep who will vote for whoever the Democrat Party throws out there for us. They pat Progressives on the head and do whatever the hell they want. Now the Progressive whining is almost unbearable. Obama may win…but it will be a squeaker. Students are totally disenchanted with the guy. They cannot find work and Obama did not cancel the student loans as was promised around many of the campuses by his surrogates.
The high unemployment and growing National Debt plus a totally disillusioned private sector now hearing Obama blathering Class Warfare nonsense will be a huge hurdle for him to overcome.
It’s also tough for the President to cry about Corporate Jets when his wife just spend nearly $800,000 to fly to South Africa for no important reason.
I just don’t see Obama re-generating the enthusiasm that got him elected. I also don’t see him being able to explain his record and a sustainable budget.
What’s the alternative to Obama for progressives, union members, and retirees? Michelle Bachmann’s plan to abolish the minimum wage? Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare? More of the GOP economic policies that have already brought us ruin? Of course Obama will be re-elected. A monkey with its finger up its own ass would be re-elected next year, as long as it wasn’t a Republican.
Last night Maddow had a great segment on Minnesota, and the two paths state Democrats can take, using Democrats in Wisconsin and New Jersey as examples:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26...../#43648781
In WI, the Democrats fought Walker and lost, and in NJ the Democrats compromised and made deals with the governor, but Christie went back on the deal and vetoed everything the Dems sacrificed so much for.
The difference in political outcome is that in WI, the fight rallied the base and now many Republicans are being recalled. In NJ, Dems look like and are a bunch of chumps.
What Matt B. suggests about enthusiasm shows that if the national election is close and McKenna wins, it will be because of Obama’s betray-the-left-first, early cave-in negotiation strategy, and not because of popular anger about Obamacare, or because he is some kind of socialist needing to compromise more.
McKenna has the looks of an intellectual, which could hurt him with the Republican base. But, on the other hand, he never tires of reminding us that in addition to being smart, he’s also a narrow-minded prick. This is a distinct advantage for a Republican candidate.
# 4: Funny, that $800,000 figure is pretty slippery. First Fox News tried to say it applied only to a side-trip, then they said it was for the whole trip, but now the whole number seems to have been pulled from the thin air.
@5
It’s a question of how big the win will be, I’m thinking it will be, in Obama’s case, rather small.
But, I’m also wondering if maybe a few losses by Democrats are what’s needed to get rid of some of the dead wood and get better folks in office.
I’m thinking that if you spot a monkey with his finger up his ass, he probably IS a Republican.
@10
Good point!
Are you referring to painful @4? It would explain his handle.
Where is painful anyway? Back watching the fake news channel?
7: “he never tires of reminding us that in addition to being smart, he’s also a narrow-minded prick”
You’ve nailed McKenna spot-on. Rs do like their candidates to be brainless, so McKenna doesn’t do himself any favors with the base by declaring his huge intelligence. On the other hand, he’ll have no real competition for the wingnut vote and he is gradually working himself into idiocy anyway.
@6 Exactly! Democratic pols still have their heads stuck in the 1950s when negotiation, compromise, and accomodation was the order of the day. THAT DOESN’T WORK ANYMORE. It ceased to work in 1988 when Newt Gingrich declared to his fellow Republicans that henceforth politics is “civil war without bullets” and is to be fought by ANY MEANS including dishonesty, deception, bullying, maneuvering, etc. The GOP has opted for pure Machievellian politics. Why do Democrats still think they can negotiate with Republicans? The GOPers themselves EXPECT US TO BEHAVE LIKE THEM and are amazed that we don’t. They’re wondering what’s wrong with us, that we still treat people like them as honorable negotiating partners when they themselves have publicly and vociferously DECLARED WAR ON US. Geez, fellow Democrats, these people have pasted up their intentions on billboards for us to read!!! You can’t negotiate with Republicans. They’re at war, and their mentality is victory or defeat, so the ONLY way to deal with them is to kick their fucking asses and DEFEAT them!!!
Any questions?
@7 “This is a distinct advantage for a Republican candidate.”
Except in a state where 60% of the electorate are liberals.
@9 We’ll never get better people in office until we change the way campaigns are financed. As long as it remains impossible to get elected to anything without selling your soul (and your floor votes) to the moneyed corporate interests, what we have now is what we’ll continue to get.
RR @ # 16:
I’m watching as the financial industry dismantles, piece-by-piece, the attempts to put controls on it post 2008 collapse. In “The Inside Job”, they say that there are over 300 financial industry lobbyists in Washington D.C. for every member of Congress.
The Bush administration’s TARP bill, presented to Congress with dire predictions that the U.S. economy would go into complete collapse if it wasn’t passed in 48 hours, had no controls at all. The one really good thing which the Obama administration was able to do was to tie the bail-outs after Jan. 2009 to controls on executive compensation and public stock ownership in return for the taxpayer’s investment. That created a strong incentive for the companies to pay off the bailout funds as soon as possible, so they could quickly give themselves big bonuses.
With so much money at stake, and with restrictions on corporate political donations removed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the financial industry will try to ensure that they have every Congressman and Senator in their back pocket by election day.
What we really need to do is stop the revolving door between Wall Street, the Fed, the SEC, and the Treasury. In Japan, regulators never work for private industry, and vice-versa. I’m beginning to like that idea.
But if we can’t put up a complete wall, then perhaps we could put up one that would be pretty effective – like a ten-year moritorium on taking a job in the financial industry after taking a government regulatory job of the industry, and vice-versa.
At the end of “The Inside Job”, the narrator says (paraphrased from memory):
Sounds like the Democrats.
@10 Only if he takes it out and licks it.
@13 “Rs do like their candidates to be brainless”
No, they like them to be crazy.
I don’t see an address for tips, but you may want to take a look at this piece from the Rutherford Institute. Maybe they are crazy, but I doubt it.
http://www.rutherford.org/arti.....ord_id=718
I think he meant “… eke out a win.” But if McKenna should win, we’d all say “eek!”, or “yuk!”
Oops- I did indeed mean ‘eke’.
Over the course of the day, we now see that Obama is absolutely committed to losing the 2012 election. Read all about his Social Security cuts and medicare cuts here and here. Honestly, fuck him. He made his bed with the right, let him lie in it. Does he actually think the right will vote for him? Good luck with that, Mr. President.
And here is Digby on Barack’s sell out and big middle finger to the elderly, his base, and every principle the Democratic Party allegedly has.
Really, fuck him sideways.
@24 And the solution is what? Vote for a Republican who wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security? Obama has us over a barrel.
@14. Roger Rabbit spews:
You can’t negotiate with Republicans. They’re at war, and their mentality is victory or defeat, so the ONLY way to deal with them is to kick their fucking asses and DEFEAT them!!!
Any questions?
———————————
Yes, I have a question. How many of those stocks you brag about have you cashed in and donated to the Dems?
@26. Roger Rabbit spews:
Obama has us over a barrel.
———————————————-
At least you have that figured out.
@26 – Obama has you over a barrel, perhaps. I can choose to vote for a third party candidate or leave the presidential race blank on my ballot. It took Walker to wake people up in WI., It will take Pres. Bachmann to wake up America. The sooner we get it over with, the better in my opinion.
What is “painful” is watching Obama about to fold like a cheap suit again. Roger Rabbit talks about defeating Republicans. We did. We had the White House, filibuster-proof Senate and super-majority in the House and what did we do? Pass a failed Stimulus Bill and a Health Care Plan that is coming apart with exemptions and untruths about costs & savings. When we win, we don’t know what the hell to do. Now Obama is in re-election mode and must cave into Repubs cost-cutting demands.
Sheesh. Again, we have no balls to hold these political types accountable. We win and look at where we are today. Blaming Bush. I think we do better when not in charge.
@27 “Yes, I have a question. How many of those stocks you brag about have you cashed in and donated to the Dems?”
None. Why should I give money to politicians? They don’t do anything for me.
@28 “I can choose to vote for a third party candidate or leave the presidential race blank on my ballot.”
Or you can stay home and not vote at all. All three options accomplish the same thing: You’re letting other people choose the next leader of our country.
As for me, I’ll hold my nose and vote for the least smelly pile of reeking horse dung.
obama doesn’t care about any democrats and he won’t carry anyone. it is all for himself—sad
@30. Roger Rabbit spews:
————————
Once more you surprise me with your candor.
@34 I think for myself. You haven’t figured that out yet?
@34 One outfit I did give (a modest sum of) money to is Captain Paul Watson’s Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for the purpose of employing physical force to prevent the Japanese Mafia from illegally killing whales in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary for monetary profit.
Watson personally told me that the Jap whalers are connected with Japanese criminal syndicates; that the only languages they understand are money and physical force; and that the only way to stop the Japanese whaling in the Antarctic was to interfere with their operations to the point where they would lose money at it. He was successful at this, and last year, the Japs suspended their Antarctic whaling operations. The numbers are pretty simple: The Japs gave themselves a quota of 1,000 whales a year, and their break-even point is around 700 whales or something like that, and Sea Shepherd’s harassment of the Jap whaling fleet has reduced to their take to 500 whales or less, so it’s costing the Japanese millions of dollars a year to keep the whaling fleet at sea. In 2010, after years of financial losses, they decided the game isn’t worth the candle and pulled their whaling fleet off the southern seas.
Why do I think saving whales is important? Because commercial whalers give no thought to the long-term survival of the species they’re harvesting, and this would be an impoverished planet if it lost its whales.
I’m an eclectic thinker. I march to no band. I don’t like “isms” of any stripe. Some of my opinions don’t jibe with Democratic Party dogma: I’m personally opposed to abortion, I support the death penalty in certain cases, I’m not a fan of big government, I’m a capitalist to the nines, and so on. I used to be a Republican and I might have remained one if Republicans hadn’t made themselves so obnoxious. You know, anti-intellectual, hating the poor, sexually exploiting vulnerable women and congressional page boys, rampant stealing and corruption — all the shit you’re familiar with.
I’ve often posted on here that I’m a Democratic Party hack and liberal propagandist, and that’s true. The reason I’m a liberal propagandist is because liberals are right and conservatives are wrong. More than that, there are no real conservatives anymore. The term has been turned into a joke, a clown act, a clusterfuck, a gang-rape of a goat herd. Who can support that? I sure can’t. The Democrats are lousy, but they’re the best we’ve got, and Republicans are so bad I can’t possibly vote for them, so here we are: I’m reduced to holding my nose and shilling for the least-worst of the “isms” out there.
# 37: I understand how you feel. Most of my friends are Republicans. And sometimes I get so upset at the Democrats that I wonder why I don’t become a Republican, too. After all, they talk a pretty good game.
But then Republicans get into office, and I remember – “Oh! THAT’s why I’m a Democrat!”