Q&A Friday 104: What Will Obama Do If Libs Take A Beating In 2010?

Question: “If the republicans take the House next year, do you think that Obama will moderate and work with republicans, like Clinton, and have a shot at reelection at 2012; or he is just too liberal for that and will continue with his policies, risking defeat at 2012?” — gustn

Question: “Having proven yourself over the last few election cycles to be a better-than-average political handicapper, how many seats do you think the GOP will pick up next year in the House and Senate?” — President_Friedman

Answer: These are both very interesting questions, but I can’t give definitive answers to either. It’s too early in the cycle.

However, the most likely outcome at this early date is that the GOP will pick up a few Senate seats and a considerable number of House seats — but probably not enough to take over either chamber. In the Senate, it would be almost impossible to pull it off and although theoretically, the GOP might be able to take the House back — wow, we would really need to have a hell of a year.

So if that happened, the question would be what next for Obama? Would he take it as a message from the country that he was pulling too far to the Left?

The intriguing thing is that my guess is that the analysis from the Left would be that they lost because they didn’t go FAR ENOUGH to the Left. The stimulus wasn’t big enough, Obama was too soft on conservatives, he didn’t push hard enough to get liberal legislation through, etc. That would seem to fit with Obama’s natural inclination, too, which is to veer way off to the Left and to send his lackeys out to launch a lot of attacks on the opposition. In addition, Obama might be thinking that he’d need his base to win in 2012 — and so, he might be tempted to ramp up the leftism to fire them up, instead of moving to the middle, to try to recapture voters who’ll have already pegged him as a radical lib.

On the other hand, after getting spanked, Clinton moved to the middle. That was politically smart and since Obama would have a very difficult time getting his agenda through without catering to Republicans, he might choose that path as well.

It’ll be enthralling to see which way Obama turns when the heat is on.

Share this!

Enjoy reading? Share it with your friends!