It was only a week ago that the Right Wing pundits and Republican presidential candidates were touting a Gallup poll showing that all four GOPers (Willard Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich) would beat President Obama in November.
How a week changes things.
Thanks to the long primary season and to Rush Limbaugh's three-day long tirade aimed at Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke, whatever good vibes the GOP might have felt went up in smoke when the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was released yesterday.
The poll showed that 40% of voters have a more negative view of the GOP as their presidential primary has continued. It also showed that the GOP is losing gound to President Obama in the key demographic of presidential elections, women.
Add this to the improving economing and Obama's rising approval ratings and you have almost the exact opposite of what the GOP thought they would be facing in November.
Throughout Obama's presidency the main view in the Right Wing blogosphere and Twitterverse has been that he's a new version of former president Jimmy Carter. Eric Erickson of RedState said it out loud in a recent blog post where he essentially gave up the idea of winning back the White House.
The 'Obama is Jimmy Carter II' mentality has mainly manifested in the GOP base. It was emboldened by the Tea Party wave in the 2010 midterm elections. The simple logic to this mentality is believing Obama would be so overpowered by the pressures of the Oval Office that the GOP can nominate the most right wing candidate to replace him and they would win like Ronald Reagan did in 1980.
The problem with that thinking is that the world isn't the same as it was in 1980 & neither is the GOP.
In 1980 being a moderate in the GOP wasn't considered a mortal sin. There was a large boogeyman in the Soviet Union that could be used to scare voters. Last, but not least, the Democratic Party was still healing from the wounds of 1968.
Today the GOP has moved so far to the right that even Reagan would be called a Marxist if he was an active politician.
Today the boogeyman being currently touted by the GOP is Iran and the religion of Islam. Not as large as the USSR.
Today it's the GOP that's fracturing due to their Devil's deal with the Tea Party.
The biggest change from 1980 has been in the realm of information. With the Internet and social media news can reach the masses much faster. It also means that outrageous statements made by politicians don't fall by the cracks so easily, something that GOP has learned the hard way in this primary.
Overall, while there is still time for something big to happen (slowing economic recovery, Israel attacking Iran, etc.) that could change the dynamic of this race, it's slowly dawning on the GOP that taking down Obama isn't as easy as it looked.
It isn't 1980.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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