The economy is shaky, unemployment remains stuck around 9 percent, and the national debt has grown to $15 trillion and beyond. And still, if I had to bet money, I would bet on President Obama being re-elected.
The reason is because the Republicans’ frontrunners, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, both have major political flaws that make it hard to see how either can win.
Romney’s problem is that, for Republican Party activists, he is the “hold your nose and vote candidate,” as evidenced by the fact that he has been stuck at 20 percent in the Republican primary polls while a succession of other front runners have come and gone. Each time one has faded, his or her support has gone to someone else.
Recent history suggests that rarely works out, particularly for the GOP. Republicans need someone they can believe in: Ronald Reagan in 1980; George W. Bush in 2000. When they select a candidate because it’s his turn and because he’s the best out there, as they did with Bob Dole in 1996 and John McCain in 2008, the Democrats usually win.
Unlike Romney, Gingrich would excite the party base, but he has a major problem in the general election: He is not likable enough. I know this is terribly subjective, and I know that many people don’t think Obama is likable, but Gingrich surely is not.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Put it this way: In the idea column, Gingrich definitely can stand toe to toe with Obama. But, based on what I remember from the last time Gingrich was in power, which was in the mid-1990s, and what I have seen since, more people will find Obama more likable than him.
I don’t mean that to be a personal criticism. In the real world, likability is a nice quality but not a necessity. Bill Gates is not particularly likable and neither was Steve Jobs, but both changed the world, and both in more than one way.
But in a presidential election, Americans aren’t just choosing a commander-in-chief and head of state. We’ve got to live with this person for four years. We have to like him or her. And I would submit that the more likable candidate has won every presidential election going back at least to 1980 and probably to 1972.
Let’s work our way back. Obama was more likable than McCain in 2008. Bush was more likable than John Kerry in 2004, and I have evidence to back that one up: 57 percent of undecided voters told Zogby pollsters they would rather have a beer with him. Bush also was more likable than Al Gore in 2000. Clinton was more likable than Dole in 1996.
The 1992 election was an anomaly in that Clinton and President George H.W. Bush both were quite likable, but Clinton more so. Even Gingrich, then the speaker of the House, admitted that he would “melt” in Clinton’s presence. Bush also had Romney’s problem in that he had become the Republicans’ “hold your nose and vote candidate” after breaking his pledge not to raise taxes. Actually, the third candidate in that race, Ross Perot, was likable as well.
Continuing back in time, Bush was more likable than the very serious Michael Dukakis in 1988. Then you have Reagan in 1980 and 1984, who would have won any likability contest. Neither Walter Mondale in 1984 nor Jimmy Carter, by 1980 a frustrated and worn incumbent, had a chance.
The 1976 presidential election featured two likable candidates — Carter, who at the time was a fresh-faced former Georgia governor with a winning smile, and Vice President Gerald Ford, who was well-liked in Washington and deservedly so. But 1976 was the post-Watergate election, when nothing else mattered.
That takes us to 1972, when President Richard Nixon, brilliant but flawed and definitely not likable, defeated Sen. George McGovern four years after defeating Hubert Humphrey. Both men were more likable than Nixon.
The pattern reaches back farther into the dawning of the media age, back through Dwight “I like Ike” Eisenhower and the always optimistic Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Romney is taller than Obama who is taller than Gingrich, so the advantage goes to Romney on that one. At least the Republicans both have full heads of hair, for what that’s worth.
But Obama is an incumbent with no primary opponent, a party that will be united behind him, and a ton of money. His organization is far more prepared to use the tools of online campaigning, including social media and whiz-bang databases, than anyone the Republicans could nominate.
A lot could happen between now and next November. The economy may crumble, or it may improve. A terrorist group could do something awful. Some rich guy could enter the race as an independent and mess everything up, as Perot did in 1992.
But, as of now, if I were a betting man, I would put money on Obama, and if I did, I would like my chances.
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Steve Brawner is an independent journalist in Arkansas. His blog — Independent Arkansas — is linked at Arkansasnews.com. His e-mail address is brawnersteve@mac.com.