The End is Near

Prognostication is a dicey business at any time. During heated election seasons, it is doubly so.  But at this point it is undeniable that our President's Presidential prospects this fall are bleak. Herewith one of his major problems.

Over the course of the last three years, we poll watchers have seen a curious, well-nigh unprecedented, phenomena. The President's poll numbers markedly deteriorate every time he gets out in front of the public, and correspondingly improve to the extent he stays out of the public lime-light.

The last few months provide an example. As the Republican primaries turned into a dog-eat-dog spectacle and dominated the headlines and punditocracy, the President's public profile diminished and his approval numbers inched up towards the magical 50% mark. This positive trend was mostly ascribed to the barest hint of economic recovery, but as most of us on the ground knew, the "recovery" was nothing more than the triumph of Democrat hope over the evidence. As the Shaman knows, the entrails must always say what the ruler needs them to say, or else the Shaman will be out of a job. And the Democrats need to see a recovery; oh, how they need it, and so they see it everywhere.

Then came February, and our Narcissist-in-Chief just could not stand being on the sidelines. So he inexplicably forced on the American public an absurd debate on contraception, as if the Republicans opposed universal access thereto, and as if the total ubiquity of low cost contraceptive options did not exist. Leon Panetta, Obama's own insider of insiders, was aghast when he learned of his President's plans on this issue, but not less aghast than the American public which understandably considers, for instance, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure as being more important health care priorities than a fantastically non-existent contraception-access problem.  

But that wasn't all.

Continue.....


As befits his self-image as a world encompassing colossus, he elected to engage in an obsequious Apology Tour 2012 over the accidental burning of some Korans in Afghanistan, rather than leaving the matter to his local commanders in the field. And as the self-styled smartest guy in the room, he could not stay out of the Republican primaries. Obama and his minions constantly interjected their comments and critiques, now against Romney, then against Santorum, now against Gingrich, exuding a juvenile smirkiness as only this Regime can do.

And there was more, but that's enough to make my point. From 50% in the polls, Obama has now gone under 42%; and his disapproval/approval spread is an inverted 47/41. You can say that it's not the Obama public profile per se that does him in, but the issues he decides to align himself with. And there is some truth to that. However, there is only an intellectual distinction between a man and his policies, and in the real world, especially after three years of consistent ideological warfare, this man is as identified with his errant policies as he is with the distinctive look of his ears.  

My point is that he only needs to show up on TV these days, and the public is instantly reminded of who and what he is, and they tune out.  No matter the issue, no matter how high-minded the rhetoric, it doesn't matter; they tune him out and poll him down.  Needless to say, this is devastating for his prospects in the fall.  How can a candidate run for election and not be out front, with his name or picture on every campaign poster? That is the question this candidate needs to answer.

The answer, of course, is that there is no answer.  He can't run such a campaign, and that is why the end is near for this Presidency.  But he will not just lose.  President Obama will go down in November, and his party with him, in an historic electoral rebuke of epic proportions.