We're only a few days away from the first Presidential contest of the 2012 elections, and the GOP candidates have been feverishly campaigning all across Iowa to win the votes of the people in their bid to occupy the White House come January 2013. The mainstream media has been in horse race mode this past week, trumpeting the latest polls showing a neck and neck race between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, with Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and Michelle Bachmann coming from behind. But I'm willing to make a bold prediction of my own. I believe one candidate will emerge victorious in next week's Iowa caucus with more votes than all the other candidates combined, and this person will easily cruise to winning his party's nomination and handily win the general election in November. Who is this superstar presidential candidate, you ask?
Why, it's Barack Obama.
Now, you're probably wondering, how is President Obama going to get more votes than the GOP candidates? Sure, he is running unopposed, but there are Democratic candidates running for office down ticket that are participating in the Iowa caucuses, and Democratic voters will vote for the President as a show of confidence. While the GOP field has been getting all the attention from the media, the Democratic Party has been silently fielding its list of candidates for local and statewide office, and most Democratic voters and many independent voters see the field of Republican candidates as a joke at best and terrifyingly crazy at worst. So many voters will have no qualms casting their ballots for the Democrats this Tuesday.
But that's not the sole reason why I believe President Obama will easily win re-election to the White House this November.
The GOP has been banking on the economy being the primary issue for voters to select the President this November, and for good reason. Unemployment is still way too high, and President Obama has not been able to fulfill all his campaign promises on bringing more jobs to struggling and unemployed Americans. However, the Republicans have done everything in their power to sabotage President Obama's efforts to jumpstart the economy, and they have held popular programs for middle class citizens hostage in order to cater to their wealthy benefactors. In addition, the economy is cratering in Europe, and most economists believe a crash in the European economy will send the American economy into a tailspin as well.
But I digress. While the European economy will probably collapse sometime during 2012, it won't have the broad economic effect on the U.S. economy most finance "experts" believe it will. Money will be fleeing from Europe, and while some of it will make its way into China, India, and Brazil, much of it will land in the safest haven they know, which is the good ol' USA. In turn, the major Wall Street banks will have money to lend out to Main Street, and that in turn will help pick up the economy and create more jobs, especially by the November elections. In fact I believe the unemployment rate will fall below 8% by next September, thus undermining the GOP gloom and doom message and guaranteeing Obama's re-election.
In addition, the GOP candidates will not be able to run on foreign policy and terrorism the way they have in the past (barring something catastrophic) thanks the demise of despots like Osama Bin Laden, Muammar Gadhafi, and Kim Jong Il and the removal of our troops from Iraq. And wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage will not work this time around either, as most of America is clearly in favor of a woman's right to choose and is increasingly embracing the rights of gays to marry each other.
While the GOP was delighted in the Supreme Court decision regarding Citizens United, they probably didn't anticipate thousands of people protesting against their signature anti-labor policies in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan, and they were caught off guard with the various grass roots protests which emerged out of Occupy Wall Street, which is reframing the economic debate this campaign season. Sure, the Republicans have unlimited money to spend on negative attack ads, thanks to their SuperPACs, but there is no consensus on the GOP challenger to President Obama, and none of the current candidates inspire much confidence in the Washington establishment, but the establishment candidate will most likely be hated by the Tea Party wing of the party. By September, the major donors running the GOP SuperPAC's will see the Presidential race as a lost cause, and will spend their time and unlimited money on the House and Senate races in an effort to take both houses of Congress.
So this is my bold prediction for 2012. I'd like to believe this race will not be close, and in a normal election season this would be a landslide re-election for President Obama. However, there are still too many bigoted Americans, particularly in the Southern and Western states, who still don't like the idea of an African American running our country. But in the end it will not matter.