I predict in 2012 Obama will get re-elected...the Dems will win back the house.
Why do I say such things...
Recent history...unless Boehner handles it differently than Newt...which I don't predict will happen.
That's interesting.
I read on another forum a counter-analysis. The suggestion is that the Democrats are playing a very long game and Obama, as part of it, has been playing to lose.
It goes something like this:
Whoever holds the presidency after the 2012 election will be in a very bad position, because it will be that party that has to deal with the bust of Social Security in 2016 (if not sooner). The winner in 2012 is the ultimate loser. If Hillary had won the 2008 primary she would have lost the general election. Republicans would have won in 2008, and after a spectacularly bad four years Democrats would have won in 2012 making them the ultimate loser.
Instead Obama beat Hillary in 2008, meaning that the Democrats won in 2008 and the Republicans will win in 2012. This scenario only works if President Obama is different from Candidate Obama. Ever since the election he's gone from being a source of inspiration to either a fool, a coward, or corrupt. He's been consistently alienating some of the traditional bases of the Democratic Party (such as gay rights, or feminists) while his big achievement was a version of health care reform that most progressives have to hold their nose when declaring it one of his big achievements.
There was a very interesting comment on a NYtimes opinion piece concerning women being more willing to vote Republican. Since I can't make a link to a comment I'll paraphrase it here. A woman who identified herself as a former DNC delegate said she can barely stomach voting for the democrats anymore due to:
*misogynistic tactics used against Clinton in the 2008 campaign (which apparently still lurks unhappily in some women's memories)
*freely slung accusations of racism to anyone who does not support Obama past or present
*democratic/liberal assertions that Islam is religion of peace, while, to any western woman's perspective, it is polluted by the subjugation and abuse of women
*reproductive rights no longer hold the sway over female voters that they once did, either because they believe them to be ironclad or they have developed pro-life leanings to whatever modest degree
*Democrats have done little more for women than have Republicans in the past 30+ years
I'll add to that how it was Obama voters who enabled Prop 8 to pass in California, it was a Republican Judge who overturned Prop 8, and it was a Republican plaintiff who launched the first successful attack against "Don't Ask Don't Tell."
Unless there's a major turn around in the economy, and along with that Obama taking firm stands on other traditional Democrat issues he's ignoring, lots of people are predicting Obama as a one term president.
You don't rise to the top of the political pyramid by thinking only in the short term. In South Carolina, Alvin Greene got 30% of the vote while the Green Party candidate got 10%. One would think that Greene, being such a sorry excuse for a candidate, would cause people to go Green, but in the long run that would hurt the Democrats far more because it would open people up to the idea of a third party challenging the two party system. That would also explain why, in 2008, the Democrats didn't support when Bob Barr had legal standing to keep McCain off the Texas ballot. Turns out that Obama didn't need that twist, he won with McCain getting Texas, but enforcing the rules on McCain would have set an unwanted precedent for the long term.