Obama's Chances in 2012

As Kevin Drum reports here, we will know in about a year whether Obama will be re-elected:

Good news for Barack Obama today! Um, sort of. Ray Fair has released a forecast of the 2012 presidential race based on his well-known political/econometric model, and he says Obama will win in a landslide.

That is, he'll win in a landslide if Ray Fair is also good at forecasting future economic growth:

It thus comes down to what the economy will be in the next two years, which is, of course, what the equations are all about. If the recovery is robust, which my economic model predicts will begin to happen in the middle of 2011, Obama wins easily. If the recovery is only modest, the election will be close, with an edge for the Republicans. If there is a double dip recession, Obama loses by a fairly large amount.

His topline forecast is that Obama wins 55.88% of the popular vote, which sounds reasonable for an incumbent president presiding over a robust economy. But if recovery is fairly flat, which is hardly out of the question, suddenly Republicans are favored to win the White House.

Comments

[Christopher Hinn]

Predictions are speculations of the future and may vary according to time. But if President Obama wins in 2012, who are we to oppose it?

[orange show]

The "C student" from Harvard may be elected in 2012, much the same way that Clinton survived in 1994. With the conservatives sweeping into Washington in January 2011; they will save the economy from the destruction of his liberal agenda. If he embraces the changes the way Clinton did, he may be able to survive; only if the Republicans put a poor candidate. If the Republicans have a strong conservative as their candidate, then Obama will surely loose.

[Andrew]

That's the entire point of the prediction. Personalities don't matter, campaign ads don't matter, the tea party doesn't matter, etc. The state of the economy has much more predictive power than any of those other factors. That's life in a two-party, first-past-the-post Presidential political system.

[Jerry]

Honestly, I don't see the point of that prediction.
If the election is decided by economical factors, what it looks like with the "Tea Party" movement rising, the result will depend on economical development? Could have guessed it myself.