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Could Barack Obama Win a Third Term?
Apparently he thinks so. At an African Union summit in Addis Ababa earlier this week, President Obama declared:
“I actually think I’m a pretty good president,” he said. “I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t. So there’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving, but the law is the law.”
It’s understood that those who seek the Presidency must have a certain degree of amour-propre. Yet it’s hard to recall another President who so obviously regards himself as a major historical figure. It’s even harder to think of another President who so little deserves that distinction. A record which contains such highlights as a stagnant economy, crippling deficits, and the recent Iranian deal suggests a clock-puncher who leans to the left.
Yet the comment about winning a third term isn’t quite as absurd as it sounds. The President’s approval ratings currently sit at 46%, about five points short of his popular vote percentage in 2012. They have never dipped below 38% and rarely fallen into the low forties. This is the strange paradox of the Obama Administration: A mediocre president who, if the 22nd Amendment was repealed, might very well win a third term.
Comparing Obama to other Presidents at this point in their terms he ranks below Reagan, Eisenhower, Clinton and Johnson but ahead of Truman and George W Bush. The latter two had their ratings dragged down by war. Reagan, Clinton and Eisenhower were buoyed by a surging economy. For a presidency in what might be described as quasi-peacetime, Obama’s approval ratings are below par. Yet, despite his failures and shortcomings, the 44th President is not hated in the same way as Harry Truman and the younger Bush.
What distinguishes Obama from the genuinely unpopular presidents is the lack of a lighting rod issue. A flagging or failing war can destroy even the most skillful of political operators. Witness the decline and fall of Lyndon Johnson. In a little more than three years, LBJ went from a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater to a comparatively narrow victory over Eugene McCarthy in New Hampshire. Both Truman and Bush saw less precipitous, though ultimately decisive drops.
Running through the demerits of the Obama legacy, there is just enough mitigation for him to get a pass from much of the electorate. The runaway deficits are usually pegged on Congress. The unemployment rate has been so fiddled with as to be nearly meaningless. This allows President Obama to proclaim an improvement in the economy, though an improvement from which few working or lower middle-class Americans have benefited. Even in what is regarded as a traditional purview of the presidency, the management of foreign affairs, there is enough voter apathy for the Iranian deal to go through with a shrug.
Barack Obama reminds me of nothing so much as that charming slacker at work. He does his job well enough, never seems to be completely blamed or credited with anything, and yet glides from promotion to promotion. Certainly he has his detractors. The ambitious workaholics who know who really writes his reports, the underlings who struggle to clean up his messes, and his enemies who know where the bodies are buried but have been bought off. Should any speak up, they’ll be met with his grinning face and a well studied style of self-deprecation. Who could hate a nice guy like that?
This is what we have in store for the next year and a half. The problems mount, the crises are ignored and President Obama drifts glibly into the future.
Published in General
Why are we so sure this is the one law Obama will choose to respect? With all the crazy stuff they have pulled so far, it is not outside the realm of possibility they would invent some excuse, some crisis to let him run again. And I’m not so sure the congress or the Supremes would do anything about it.
Given the state of the GOP at the national level he’d easily win a third term.
It’s not that he could or couldn’t do it. It’s that he’s in Addis Abbaba talking about countering the 22nd amendment, then in an “aw shucks” kinda way citing the law – the law! – as the reason he can’t.
This is the same bag of crap that routinely and publicly states he’s going to ignore laws he doesn’t want to enforce. And people wonder why, at times, foreigners think we’re full of what Barry’s peddling.
Hint: It’s because we are.
There is still time to bomb Iran. In the ensuing crisis BHO could just stay on to see the thing through. Of course that is after Hillary declines to run because of all the revelations leaked by the WH….. (giggles uncontrollably)
I agree with most of the posters; he would win a third election, and a fourth, fifth, and sixth if he so desired. The following are the reasons why:
1. An uninformed electorate
2. The split Republican party
3. The media
4. Immigration and Citizenship
5. A huge welfare state that heavily populated urban voters want. He will start with a 240 electoral vote margin.
6. As a previous poster mentioned: The Limbaugh Theorem. Nothing bad is every attributed to him.
He’s like Castro who fifty years after seizing power is still talking about the “revolution.” No matter how miserable the Cubans are, it’s because the revolution is not complete. They will support him, just like we will support our dear leader revolutionary.
Of course he could. I have absolutely no faith in the sense of my fellow Americans. If it weren’t for the Constitution, Bill Clinton might still be President.
I think he’d win. It’s awful. Many people love the monarchy.
I guess he could run again and win but I find it more likely that will just not leave. Some bright young John Yoo type will figure a way that the constitution does not restrict the President so he can run again or not have to leave at the end of his term. The case will go to SCOTUS where he would need 5 out of 9 judges to support him. He is guaranteed that the 4 liberal judges would support him so all he really needs is to pressure one of the other judges to swing his way and it is done. GOP would yell but follow the new law, since that is the way the wind is blowing and they do not want to be cut out. Military would stay out of it. Police will arrest anybody making too much trouble. The minorities would come out in droves to support what they will see as them taking over the country, which is all good from their perspective. Liberial whites will cheer as their progressive agenda is moved forward. Non liberial whites will bow down and roll over in the collective guilt they have been fed for the last 50 years. All it takes is for him to be hungry enough to reach out and take it.
I don’t even think the law would be that big deal.
In NY term limited Rudy Giuliani caused a real ruckus when he asked for an extension on his mayoralty because of the September 11th attacks. (everyone forgets that the 11th was a Tuesday, and it was Primary Day in NYC).
The city was still burning when people started yelling about Rudy’s “fascism” and I believe the extension was only about a month or so. But 8 years later, Mike Bloomberg had the law changed and cruised to a 3rd term.
OK. How much money to take that picture off your post?
I’m getting an avoidance reaction to Ricochet. Is that weird – or what ?
I don’t know why some of you are worried that Obama will ignore the constitution to keep being president. After all, even if he did, McConnell would simply pass a bill saying he could, but only if Congress didn’t pass another bill saying he couldn’t – a truly foolproof plan.
He wouldn’t win.
Being the first black president was a big deal. Defending the first black president against a challenge was motivating. A third time around wouldn’t be as interesting and exciting and he wouldn’t get that push.
He would make it closer than any other Democrat though.
Everybody here seems to be forgetting the fact that it is the states that run the elections and not the federal government. Let play out a scenario. Obama runs for a third term. All the democratic governors are crooks and let him on the ballot in their state. He would only be able to win 206 electoral votes (and some of these states with Democratic governors went Republican in 2012). It isn’t going to happen and we shouldn’t be engaging in tin foil hat thinking.
In all seriousness, I do worry about whether the Left will allow a Republican president. They threw a temper tantrum when Bush became president, vandalizing the White House, and that was after the apolitical nineties. Meanwhile, Obama has spent seven going on eight years making the executive branch the main entity in Washington, and we are in one of the most polarized times in US history.
I hope that if Obama has to hand over all that power to a President Walker, he will do so the same way his 43 predecessors did, but I can’t shake the fear that he might not.
The vast majority of the Left does want him to be dictator for life, and would support him if he tried to fight it. And even if he does go along with the change, how far will the radical Left go to make trouble over it? I do hope I’m just being paranoid.
It strikes me as an indisputable fact that the Democrats will eventually try to abolish the election of presidents and establish a dictatorship, it’s only a matter of when they make their move. So, it’s something we should think about, even if it’s not in the foreseeable future.
One final post to get across what I’m getting at (stupid, broken EDIT button).
The Democratic party’s strategy for the past seven years has been a very short sighted game, exemplified by Harry Reid’s “he didn’t win” line, where they followed the quickest path to victory. This has taken the form of basically making Congress a rubber stamp for the Executive, which has enabled them to achieve just about all their goals. By contrast, the Republic strategy has been to look at the long game, focusing on keeping their heads down and steadily increasing their power.
However, the end result of all this is that the Democrat’s empire is made of sand castles, and can be completely undone by the next president (Outside of a few Supreme Court decisions, how much has been decided outside of executive actions? Not much that I can think of). The presidency is now the linchpin – Whoever controls that controls the world.
No they don’t. They are done with him. The movement is bigger than the man. He’s useless now.
Reading through the comments, one thing I didn’t see brought up is if the 2 term limit for president didn’t exist, wouldn’t Obama not act like a lame duck?
He’s going for broke right now, but if he knew he probably had more time, wouldn’t he be more low key during his second term?
As for Bill Clinton still being president, would that be a bad thing compared to what we have? I do agree that Clinton would have been elected to a third term. But I’m not so sure about a fourth. Probably not.
This is exactly the same thought I had when I heard that quote, “But, the law…” from the Great O’s mouth. He doesn’t really seem to give a hoot about the Constitution.
And, yes, yes–the 22nd Amendment was totally a sour grapes law…but even if it wasn’t, this guy only uses the “law” to suit himself.
I’m not usually a tinfoil-hat wearer, but His O-ness has started to get me leaning that way. I need to just sit back, and take slow breaths, and calm down. Seriously—don’t freak me out like this people!!
Let one of the Conservative justices (and Anthony Kennedy) die suddenly, Obama puts a another justice on the court, and you have five votes for throwing the 22nd amendment out the window and re-electing Obama.
You people are losing your minds.
Easy peasy. No person shall be elected President. He runs as VP to Hillary, who with Obama on the ticket would be electable. She then steps down due to cognitive problems from her head injury. Third term coming up.
Clinton could have pulled it off.
Perhaps like many here, I was one of those “broken glass” voters who would have crawled to the polls to vote Republican. Even with that level of emotion on our side, W lost the popular vote to the wooden and only mildly endorsed Al Gore. Hopefully there would have been enough Democrats back then who would have found the concept of a third Clinton term unappealing as a precedent (they’d still be smarting from Reagan’s victories), but odds are they would have gladly voted for him given the 90’s economic boom was only beginning to crack and Clinton was still a media darling.
My metro NYC relatives commented upon the election of De Blasio that they totally disagreed with that vote, but they would have happily made Bloomberg king.
A contented liberal elite – even if joking – can give you pause.
The 12th amendment might stop him: But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
Could still happen. It is open to interpretation whether “constitutionally ineligible to the office” includes the 22nd amendment. I doubt he would attach himself to Hillary. Sanders / Obama, Warren / Obama, Biden / Obama make more sense. God help the President in any one of those scenarios.
Going down the line of succession, next up would be Speaker of the House. He could run for congress, and assuming democrats take over the house, gets himself elected Speaker. He would have to find a way to get rid of both pres and vice-pres to assume a 3rd term. Low probability.
Next after that is president pro tem of the Senate.
Next after that is Secretary of State. Hillary wins and appoints him Secretary of State out of spite. Now he has to dispose of Hillary, vice pres, Speaker of the House, and president pro tem of senate. Seems excessive.
I hope you’re right about the 12th.
What if he runs as Barry Soetoro?
Obama needs a Republican to win in order to take the blame for:
economic collapse;
Iran going nuclear;
terrorism;
closing Gitmo (Obama will just default on the lease and force his successor to actually pull out);
ChiCom mischeif.
Yeah, but it’s fun.