Looking at his potential opponents, a definitive yes.
Though not necessarily in a landslide vote.
My answer on that one is: the debates haven't happened yet. Reagan wasn't supposed to beat Carter either, and then Reagan mopped the floor up with Carter in the debates three weeks before the 1980 election.
I think he is guaranteed his 2nd term. A lot of his opponents are either RINOs(Mitt Romney) or damaged goods(Sara Palin). Whether or not it is a landslide depends on who the republicans prop up in order to give Obama his 2nd term.
If the statistics remain consistent, he won't be.
1. No President since 1936 who has had an Unemployment rate of 7.2% or above going into an election year has ever been reelected.
2. No sitting Senator who has ever been elected President has ever been reelected (the first two who were died in office[Harding and Kennedy], however. So far Obama has broken that chain)
3. Very rarely do we have three reelected Presidents in a row. It has only happened twice in American Political History: Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and FDR, Truman, Ike.
The question speaks for itself.
None of that takes into account the situation. How about you look into how often moderates have won the GOP primary after Reagan. That should be more telling than most other things.
If the statistics remain consistent, he won't be.
1. No President since 1936 who has had an Unemployment rate of 7.2% or above going into an election year has ever been reelected.
2. No sitting Senator who has ever been elected President has ever been reelected (the first two who were died in office[Harding and Kennedy], however. So far Obama has broken that chain)
3. Very rarely do we have three reelected Presidents in a row. It has only happened twice in American Political History: Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and FDR, Truman, Ike.
In the post-war era, no President has been reelected with an unemployment rate above 7.2%.
That's such a flawed statistic though.
First of all, why ignore that FDR got reelected with an unemployment rate in the teens (I believe it was 14 or 15%)? Seems pretty significant, and no economic crisis since that time period has been quite as bad as the one Obama has faced in his first few years as president.
Secondly, let's look at the unemployment #s on election day for post-FDR incumbent presidents, up until that magical 7.2% number that Reagan got reelected with:
Truman, 1948 - 3.8% (reelected)
Eisenhower, 1956 - 4.3% (reelected)
Johnson, 1964 - 4.8% (reelectedish)
Nixon, 1972 - 5.3% (reelected)
Ford, 1976 - 7.8% (NOT reelected)
Carter, 1980 - 7.5% (NOT reelected)
So what I'm getting at is that in 1984, by your logic, you could've said "In the post-war era, no President has been reelected with an unemployment rate above 5.3%. Thus, Reagan won't win!" And yet with unemployment 2 points higher than that magic number (up to that point), Reagan was reelected in an absolute landslide.
So what I'm getting at is, we have to be careful in using past elections as an exact precedent in determining an exact number the unemployment has to reach to guarantee Obama's reelection. No such number exists - he could get reelected with higher unemployment than Reagan, and he could get defeated with lower unemployment than Reagan. What will matter, as I said in my other post, is the general sentiment of the country...not any concrete statistic.
Reagan wasn't a moderate, and there are quite a few conservatives on the list right now. Incidently, my definition of a Moderate is a "watered down liberal".
I think he is guaranteed his 2nd term. A lot of his opponents are either RINOs(Mitt Romney) or damaged goods(Sara Palin). Whether or not it is a landslide depends on who the republicans prop up in order to give Obama his 2nd term.
Reagan wasn't a moderate, and there are quite a few conservatives on the list right now. Incidently, my definition of a Moderate is a "watered down liberal".
I meant that the Republicans have fielded no moderate presidential candidates since Reagan, and have alienated the independents with their candidates in this race already. Look at Bachmann, Pawlenty, etc. They're never going to beat Obama, but one of them might beat the other Republicans.
I agree about how much of a mess the GOP field is right now. The candidates are so busy trying to prove how right wing they are, they're forgetting to do things like try to prove how good presidents they'd be. They're just trying to make Americans hate Obama, instead of making them like the candidates. Some positivity might help these folks out. Obama's had a lot of positivity, and still does.
I don't really want to speculate on what happens. I thought Bush would be defeated in a landslide in '04, so I realize I'm not good at predictions. I hope Obama wins again, not only because he espouses way more of my ideals than republicans do, but also because I think he's a good person with a lot of integrity, who's held on as much as he can in the single most ideals-destroying job in the world. I have a lot of respect for him. And, sadly, it seems like the GOP candidates that I have respect for (like Romney and Paul), aren't lunatic fringe enough to unite their party.
They said Reagan was never going to beat Carter too. He did, BIG TIME! I can think of several reasons why Obama is going to lose.