2012 Presidental Election will be About Obama’s Last 4 Years … Not Necessarily the GOP Challengers

Irrelevant poll after suspect poll after even more questionable polls are presented about hypothetical match ups between President Barack Obama and probably GOP contenders for the 2012 Presidential election. However, the focus is not on the potential multitude of Republican challengers, it will be on Obama and his resume of the last four years.

All this logic is terribly flawed. Here’s why. The contest four years ago was for an open seat. Open-seat races are about all comers and both parties. The 2012 election will be a reelection contest. It will focus narrowly on the incumbent. Has Barack Obama handled the presidency well enough to deserve reelection? Virtually all incumbents, and even a few challengers, appear to resent this one-sided nature of reelection contests. But resentment doesn’t alter the reality.

Incumbents, including Obama, react to this certainty by doubling down on opposition research. They figure they can “make it all about the challenger” with enough dirt to induce people to forget about the incumbent’s failures.

In 2012 Americans will have to ask themselves has Barack Obama lived up to his own “Hope & Change” hype. Has Obama the campaigner done the same job in office as President? Can America say that Obama’s policies have made the economy better, have they made health care better, US energy independence better and have they made the environment to attain a job better?

Granted the GOP is going to have to run an inspired candidate with not just a message, but a way to implement that message and explain to America how that philosophy will make the United States a better place. However, just like employees, at least those that have a job under the Obama presidency, have an annual review … 2012 represents Barack Obama’s four year review. Obama failed his two year review by the shellacking that took place during the 2010 midterm elections.

President Barack Obama needs to remember that in all his golfing excursions, vacations and lack of leadership … he answers and works for the American people. Obama’s boss will decide in 2012 whether he deserves another four years. Obama cannot run as a DC outsider, there will be no mystique attached to his candidacy and electing Obama will not be historic. It is hard to believe after 4 years under Obama that the same exuberance that propelled him to office in 2008 will be there in 2012. Obama is now an “incumbent” and has a record, or the lack thereof that he is accountable for.

As much as the MSM will attack GOP contenders, “We the People” know that 2012 is all about Barack Obama and a President that has failed to lead so many times and has been “lost in smallness”.