The honeymoon is over. Hell, the flight back made an emergency landing and there's already been a trial separation. But the forces are aligning for Boomerang Barry, and I think our man has it made in '12.
- The Economy
- The Republican Primary
- No 3rd Party Challenger
- The Economy. The point of no return has long passed and the economy is on the up swing. We'll see corporate profit increases, followed by modest employment gains, ramping up faster towards the election. Things will be much more stable in '12 than in '08, leaving people to ask themselves how Obama has done over 4 years.
- The Republican Primary. The Tea Party rules! Everyone's trying to out-conservative everyone else. Abortions? Punishable by death! Immigration? Punishable by death! The environment? Punishable by death! The US isn't that extreme and the winner of the primary will have just come off of 9 months of grueling campaigning, and will then have to do a 180 and have convince everyone that they're really a moderate after all (without pissing off the Tea Party base!). Obama, meanwhile, will get to sit back "above the fray" without a challenger and save some campaigning cash. He'll have more energy, more money, and much of the ideological damage will have already been done by Republicans tearing each other up.
- No 3rd Party Challenger. Bush Sr.'s Republican vote in 1992 was split by Perot. In this political environment, the only 3rd partier who could gain traction would be a conservative one. That would only help Obama and hurt the Republican candidate.
Barring any major disaster, the wind seems to be at Obama's back going into 2012