Midterm elections: Trouble brewing for Obama

Speculation is everywhere about what the defeat of so many Democratic candidates means for President Obama’s re-election chances. And who is likely to be his Republican challenger.

“We just had tough election,”said Obama on Wednesday. “We will have another in 2012”. He knows his re-election does not look guaranteed at this point.

Republicans are so eager to challenge him that many of the possible contenders didn’t even wait to get this week’s mid term elections out of the way before starting their campaigns. To them these elections were all part of the long game.

In “off year” elections big name politicians can play a key role in getting lesser known candidates elected. Voters in the US are still prepared to come out on cold night to attend a political rally in their local school gym, but they are much more likely to do so if a well known face is going to speaking. So the mid term elections are a great opportunity for possible presidential candidates to get to speak to voters all across the country – and notch up a few favors owed by the local candidates they are stumping for.

Sarah Palin made lot of waves and quite a few friends when she went round the country endorsing Tea Party types in the primary elections and campaigning for them during the general election. Some of her choices were badly beaten. Like Christine “I’m not a witch” O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle who failed to unseat Senate majority leader Harry Reid. And in her own state of Alaska it looks like her sworn enemy Lisa Murkowski is going to beat the Palin pick Joe Miller despite the fact that her name was not even on the ballot and voters had to write it in. So does that mean that she is in trouble if she decided to run for president in 2012? Not necessarily.

Mitt Romney is widely believed to be planning a run at the presidency and the many in party establish believe it is his turn. He lent his support to 289 federal and state candidates this year, he donated $1.1 million to candidate’s campaigns and he visited a total of 32 states. A punishing schedule but that’s what you have to do if you want to be president.

But he didn’t attract a fraction of the coverage Sarah Palin got. She is the Republican Party’s only genuine celebrity. Not all of her candidates lost on Tuesday night. She endorsed 29 House candidates and 15 of them won. She backed eight Tea Partiers for the Senate and 5 won. An average of about 50 per cent victories.

Mitt Romney did better because about three quarters of his picks won their races. But Palin got all the attention and she will have won points among her Tea Party base for having the courage to back conservative candidates who didn’t look certain to win. Only 27 per cent of Americans say they think Palin is qualified to be president (which make you wonder who that 27 per cent are?) but 100 per cent of political pundits are speculating about what Nov 2nd results mean for her chances of becoming Americans first female president.

Within the Republican Party they are now taking very seriously the idea that Palin is preparing to run. Even if it gives many of the Grand Old Men heartburn just to think about it. But Palin is not going about it in the traditional way. Instead of making numerous trips to Iowa and New Hampshire she’s made a reality TV show. On Nov 14th the first episode of Sarah Palin’s “Alaska” will air on TLC. No one knows what is in it but its being produced the creators of Survivor and The Apprentice. While America’s most famous teen-age mother Bristol Palin has survived seven weeks as a contestant on Dancing With the Stars. Last week she got the judges’ lowest score for her Viennese waltz but was saved by viewers votes – possibly proving just how good the Tea party is at getting out the vote when it matters.

On Wednesday President Obama pointed out that “two great communicators” former president Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both suffered bad elections half way through their first terms and still went on to get re-elected. But Obama looked so gloomy at his press conference on Wednesday it made me think instead of Lyndon Johnson. He, like Obama, won a landslide election for the presidency and then a sharp reversal 2 years later in the mid terms in 1966. He ultimately decided not to even run for a second term in 1968.

Everyone is paying so much attention to the right wing of American politics – mostly to the Tea party insurgency within the Republican Party – that the left gets little mention. But the left wing of the Democratic Party is not happy with Obama’s performance so far and if he makes too many compromises with the Republicans now running the House they will get more upset. A challenge to Obama from the left is not impossible. Thursday’s edition of the ultimate insider’s publican “Politico” is running the headline “Could Dean Challenge Obama” speculating about a possible threat from former DNC chairman Howard Dean (remember the scream?)

Its extremely unlikely to anyone could beat Obama to the nomination but simply having to compete in primary elections would be very damaging to any sitting president. It hasn’t happened since Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Carter later lost the general election..