Wow: A recent nationwide Gallup poll (taken August 17 and 18) puts President Barack Obama and all top three Repugnican Tea Party 2012 presidential contenders — Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann — polling at 40-something-percent each.
Even foaming-at-the-mouth lunatic Bachmann is only slightly behind Obama in the Gallup poll, at 44 percent to his 48 percent. Perry ties Obama, with 47 percent each, and Romney beats Obama by two percentage points, 48 percent to 46 percent.
(In the poll “libertarian” whackjob Ron Paul garnered 45 percent to Obama’s 47 percent, but Paul has about as much of a chance as Bachmann does of getting the Repugnican Tea Party presidential nomination. The last member of the U.S. House of Representatives who went from the House to the White House was James Garfield, for fuck’s sake.)
I realize that the November 2012 presidential election is more than a year off, but these numbers are waaay too close for comfort, and other nationwide polls taken this month show similar results.
One of those polls, a CNN poll taken over August 5 through August 7, has Obama over Romney by only one percentage point, 49 percent to 48 percent; has Obama also beating Perry, 51 percent to 46 percent; and has Obama beating Bachmann, 51 percent to 45 percent. (Ironically, that poll shows only former New York City Mayor Rudy “A Noun, A Verb and 9/11” Giuliani beating Obama, 51 percent to 45 percent, but Giuliani isn’t, at least as of today, running.)
Gee, maybe it was a bad fucking idea for Team Obama to fucking burn its base of progressives (that is, actual liberals).
Seriously: I surmise that if Obama hadn’t burned his base — repeatedly — he wouldn’t be stuck below 50 percent in the polls (with the margin of error [usually plus or minus 3 percent] factored in, that is). Obama received 53 percent of the popular vote in November 2008, which, while obviously was not a huge majority, was better than George W. Bush garnered in 2000 or in 2004.
With a demoralized, deeply disappointed base, I can’t see Obama matching his 53 percent in November 2012. What I can see is a very tight 2012 presidential race, like we saw in 2000 and in 2004 — and the incredibly spooky specter of a President Perry or a President Bachmann driving disappointed Obama voters to the polling booths in order to vote against Obama’s Repugnican Tea Party opponent much more than Obama ever could inspire people to vote for him.
Indeed, the 2012 presidential election seems to be shaping up to be about which candidate the voters hate the least rather than the candidate whom they love the most, which indicates that it’s long past time time to break up the partisan duopoly and to offer the American voters some real choices, and not only the choice between the Coke Party and the Pepsi Party.
The charade, the elephant and donkey show, will continue as long as we support it, it seems to me. As much as I don’t want to see a President Perry or a President Bachmann (or a President Romney), I’m also beyond sick and fucking tired of being punk’d by the Democratic Party.
Maybe a President Perry or a President Bachmann will solve the problem once and for all — if we survive such a presidency…
Robert's Virtual Soapbox 