2012 Presidential Campaign, Pt. 2

Mentioned my prediction (which is actually more of a wish than a prognostication) of a 2012 presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin last night to a friend.

"You really think Obama's going to lose the nomination?" he said incredulously. I repeated my assertion that if unemployment is over 9% then Obama is very vulnerable, because Americans vote with their pocketbooks.

My friend replied that there have been only two sustained primary challenges to a sitting president in our lifetimes -- Ted Kennedy against Jimmy Carter in '80, and Ronald Reagan against Gerald Ford four years before that. Not only did both of those challenges fail, but the sitting president lost the general election both times.

What would this mean if Clinton campaigned against Obama in two years? Does a strong challenge in the primary expose the weaknesses of the incumbent president, as my friend suggested?

I don't think comparisons to the bicentennial election are justified -- it was an odd election cycle, with the sitting president barely in office more than 2 years and having only been named president, and before that vice president, due to resignation; Ford was also new to presidential campaigning, and, having recently pardoned Nixon, could not promote himself as an outsider ready to shake up the Washington status quo.

However, a case could be made that 2012 is looking a lot like 1980. The economy is perhaps even weaker now than it was 32 years ago, and should our current military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to sink deeper into quagmire, we could be looking at a problem similar to the hostage crisis in Iran. A well-intentioned president burdened with a stagnant economy and a weak international reputation . . . would a strong primary challenge expose Obama's shortcomings and leave him defenseless against a strong Republican candidate?

I think that's entirely possible, but I also think there's a strong possibility that we'll see something happen in 2012 that happened in neither '76 or '80 -- a successful primary challenge to the incumbent president. Clinton has a clear advantage over Reagan or Kennedy, as she has primary campaign experience at the national level (remember, she nearly won the nomination in '08, and actually earned more popular votes than Obama), with Reagan only having run a limited campaign in '68 and Kennedy never running at the national level. Clinton also has the ability to campaign both as an insider (a very involved First Lady, eight-year Senator, and current Secretary of State) and outsider (potentially first female President, and the quintessential anti-Obama/anti-incumbent candidate).

I'm not saying I prefer Clinton to Obama, but unless Obama's fortunes change for the better (and in the coming year a lot can certainly happen) I see a Clinton primary challenge as a strong possibility, with a high probability of success. And should that come to pass, all it would take would be for Sarah Palin to ask for the Republican nomination (there'd be no need for a primary campaign) to result in perhaps the most entertaining presidential campaign in the history of this country.