Obama, Nixon and the 2012 Campaign

The 2012 presidential campaign is already shaping up to be a complicated one. No president since FDR has won a second term in office with an unemployment rate higher than 7.2 percent, yet today 9.1 percent of Americans do not have jobs and job creation figures are soft; just 54,000 new jobs were created in May.

At the same time, the Republican candidates are no more appealing. According to a recent Pew Center survey, 44 percent of voters had a negative opinion of Republican candidates or potential candidates, 19 percent were neutral, and only 12 percent had a positive view of what the GOP had to offer.

As Americans are looking for work, Congress, controlled by Republicans, determines people’s future with the roll of the dice, implementing drastic cuts in social programs while at the same time calling for tax cuts for the rich. Bad for democracy, but good for Obama.

Even though history indicates that an unemployment rate higher than 7.2 percent makes re-election difficult, we must also remember that Roosevelt was elected when the rate was 16.6 percent and re-elected in 1940 when it was 14.6 percent. Many economists from all fields have compared the economic and financial crisis from 2008 to that of 1929. Looking at it from this angle, the chances of the 44th president becoming the 45th in 2011 are not so bad.

Leaving aside disappointing unemployment predictions, it could be argued that Barack Obama has reduced the number of jobless Americans. Still, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when he was sworn in and it is now 9.1%. This will remain the main argument for the Republicans during the upcoming election year.

As the presidential election takes place state by state, it is the members of the electoral college who decide the outcome – we saw in 2000 that even though Al Gore won the most votes, he lost the election because he had fewer votes in the electoral college after the Supreme Court decided to award the election to George W. Bush. Of the 19 states that have an unemployment rate above the national average, 11 are states where Obama was victorious in 2008. For example, if Obama loses Michigan, Florida and North Carolina, he will lose their 60 Electoral College votes, an influential number.

Michael Tomasky, editor of the journal Democracy, remains optimistic. He compares the current situation to that of Nixon’s presidency. The unemployment rate rose by two percent after Nixon’s arrival at the White House in 1972. But, like Obama today, Nixon was faced with Democratic adversaries in a state of total confusion and controlled by lunatics, the same situation currently experienced by the GOP. Job creation should be at least around 300,000 per month. At the very least, Obama can say that the country is back on the right track, which is just as well because there are not many months before the 2012 election.