US Presidential Elections are a slightly bigger deal than UK General Elections They're slightly different as well, as they are only electing a leader, not a legislature (that's for the midterms) but that's beside the point. Where as in the UK the parties have about two months to campaign for votes, in the US the Presidential candidates have a year to nine months to prepare for the election.
Pity the Republican Party aren't going to be ready in time.
On January third next year, the Iowa Caucus will be held. This is an electoral event that helps decide who will be the Republican and Democrat nominees for the Presidency. As the first such caucus it gives an early indication of who migh end up being the nominee. Once the Caucus' are over and the nominee's are chosen the race can begin.
Now the chances of Obama (that is the sitting Democrat President in case anyone has forgotten) not reciving the Democratic nomination are slim. Chances are in fact that nobody will actually run against him. This means that he can focus all of his efforts from January to November on getting re-elected.
The Republicans meanwhile are going to go into the Cacus with six potential nominees. A Woman, two Texans, a former Senator, a former Govenor and a former Speaker of the House. Most of whom have policies that would make the most Conservative politican of the 1930's proud (and yes I'm looking at you Bachman and Perry).
The problem with that is that it's going to make choosing a candidate harder. With six candidates you're going to end up with a plurality of votes with no one candidate getting any one majority. The GOP will want to get through the Cacuses as quickly as possible in effort to get onto to the campagin trail. With six candidates that is going to take a while. At this stage they want to be down to two candidates. Three maximum and even that would create problems.
Having this number of candidates at this time, essentially means the GOP are going to be squabbling over candidates and nominees to Febuary/March time. Maybe even April. By then Obama will have a three/four month headstart in terms of campaigning. Which is something the GOP can't really afford.
If Romney or Gingrich (or even Perry or Paul) really want the White House, they need to get serious, quickly. And the GOP needs to start getting it's house in order.
Having six candidates is a problem, but it's very unlikely that Obama will be re-elected anyways. With the lack of major improvement over the last three years, he'd have to do something miraculous in the coming year to get back into the White House.
ReplyDeleteAll he has to do is sit back and wait.
ReplyDeleteThe Democrats will vote for him anyway unless he does something dumb like invade Mexico. The Republicans will never vote for him.
But every day that the Six GOP candidates get geography wrong, forget which deparments they want to abolish and generally look like the cast of Carry On Mr President several hundred independant voters flock to Obama's banner.
Geography doesn't matter to people who have put up with a terrible economy for almost 4 years. Obama hasn't helped in the least with that, and when things are this bad, the Constitution doesn't even matter to the American citizens. He's gonna have to seriously get his act together to make something look promising out of this.
ReplyDeleteIf Geography doesn't matter, having competant leaders does.
ReplyDeleteNot a single one of the GOP canidates currently running, except maybe Romney at a push could competantly lead an entire nation
I say scrap the current nominees and pick some new ones. That's my thought on it though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that Wilf.
ReplyDeleteWhat someone needs to do is get down to New Jersey and convince Chris Christie to run. He's about the only Republican I could could get behind (if I was American that is)
I agree that the number of candidates will make it hard, and most of them aren't good candidates, but I still don't think they're bad enough for Obama to get back in. Perry and Romney both have a good knowledge of the Constitution and some good ideas, but the problem is electability. Some of their ideas are just too radical for them to be elected easily. Obviously their mistakes in the debates aren't helping either.
ReplyDelete(I've had to sign into my long-disused Google account to post this because OpenID's playing up.)
ReplyDeleteWow, I missed this. And obviously can't resist commenting on it anyway ...
Firstly, the US will absolutely be electing a legislature next year as well. The election will not just be for the president, but for the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, a bunch of governerships and all the state legislatures. I personally think two-year terms are ridiculously short for a member of a legislature, but, well, not my country.
As for the GOP, well. I think, against anyone from this current field, Obama stands a pretty good chance. But not having a definite candidate this late in the game isn't necessarily fatal. In 2008 the Democrats went right down to the line with Obama and Clinton, and that worked out OK (whereas McCain emerged pretty early as the Republican standout).
As for the field itself, it's pretty bizarre. It looks like Romney or Gingrich at the moment, who are thankfully two of the less out-there candidates (Rick Perry as president doesn't bear thinking about). I am convinced, beyond any doubt, that Perry, Bachmann and Paul (who I actually think has a head on his shoulders, even if I almost always disagree with him) are unelectable in a general election; they're just too extreme, and history shows that when either side strays too far from the centre they lose and lose badly. Huntsman will never win the nomination. And then I see pretty big problems for the fruntrunners too: Romney is potentially moderate enough but has been flip-flopping all over the place, while Gingrich is dangerously unpredictable. Should certainly be an interesting race.
Wow, I just saw this. Little bit late, but I still want to reply.
ReplyDeleteWith the more recent developments it's become obvious that Gingrich is not the man for the White House - he's chronically unfaithful, has a volatile temper, and is not remembered fondly for his time as Speaker of the House. As for the comments on Perry and Paul being too extreme to be electable, I also think you're correct - in my opinion Paul might make a good president (though I haven't researched a lot), but the American people will not elect him because he's too conservative. As one of my teachers said today, we're not at the point where we'll elect a conservative like where we were at with Reagan in the eighties. I don't know much about Bachmann, and I don't like Perry simply because from what I've seen he is unelectable. I like Romney, and Santorum is interesting but I don't think he's what the country needs (or at least wants) right now. Romney and Santorum would both be better than Obama, but it's going to be a close race.