Quote Of The Day

Image credit: Composited by Cujo359 from official White House photo

Jon Walker, on the upcoming Presidential election:

Don’t be surprised if the 2012 Presidential election ends up being extremely negative. With low approval numbers, the Obama campaign may see its best option as doing whatever it takes to make the Republican candidate unacceptable, and the Republican candidate will have the same incentives. This is also a dynamic that could potentially encourage a Ross Perot like character to try to run.

Marist Poll: 49 Percent Definitely Plan to Vote Against Obama

That's how I see it. In fact, you can already see the signs. The Republicans have done their best to paint Obama as some out-there foreign-born socialist, absolutely none of which is even remotely true. Obamaworld, meanwhile, has done its level best to paint every possible GOP presidential candidate as a nutjob and/or a racist. In some cases, that's less of a stretch than painting Obama as a socialist, but where credulous belief is concerned, clearly anything is possible.

Yes, there might be a third party candidate. There's some precedent. As someone recently pointed out to me (I can't remember where I read this, sorry), third party candidates for President tend to emerge in circumstances like this. A sitting President who is unpopular, an opposition that can't seem to come up with a viable candidate, and economic hard times are all conditions that usually engender such a thing, and we have them all right now.

Sadly, that candidate is unlikely to be a progressive. Progressive solutions are the only thing that will get this country out of its current economic hole, and progressives aren't willing to stand up in sufficient numbers to make any politicians try them. So, what we'll get is something like Ross Perot.

Right now, though, I'd be a Perot voter. And it would be my first time.