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Originally Posted by raymor
Thre's some truth to that. Also with Gore remember Clinton's first few years the economy was hot, it was fast and loose money whiten Clinton came in and his first few years. His LAST couple years, election time, the economy had started to drop significantly. Today we remember the good years early in the Clinton presidency, but at election time things weren't so great and the argument was made that the dems ruined a great economy.
Given the doubling of the debt and the gutting of medicare to pay for Obamacare, I don't see how his second term, if he has one, can possibly be anything but horrible. We've overspent by $20,000 per taxpayer and we WILL have to pay the piper. Trillions in debt simply don't just disappear. To me, it's like a guy making $80,000 / year salary who has just put $40,000 on credit cards saying "if next year is good I can have a nice vacation." It ain't happening. We've already spent the next ten tears worth of lucky breaks. If we're lucky, we'll be able to survive the debt and not go completely bankrupt ala Greece.
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You are correct, we have a ton of debt and no end to the debt and the deficit spending anywhere in site.
But those things don't really matter that much in an election. I have been hearing about how the national debt will cripple this country since I was a little kid yet we keep on moving forward. What people care about in an election is how they personally are doing. If people have a job, a decent place to live and things are looking personally good for them, they don't really worry about the debt because it is something that is out of their control and that they have been hearing about for 30 years.
If Obama wins a second term and at the end of it the unemployment rate is rate is at a reasonable level and Obamacare hasn't destroyed the healthcare system in this country most people will forgive him about the debt especially if he is putting forth budgets that look to slowly be working on shrinking it. He will be the guy who can say he made the hard choices that brought us back from the brink of economic collapse, saved the american auto industry, got Bin Laden, helped get Gadaffi out of power and brought the unemployment rate down from 10% to whatever it is as he leaves office and brought healthcare to millions that didn't have it and many people will love him for it.
People love Reagan because they see him as the guy who brought us out of recession and beat the Russians. They seem to forget that he raised taxes a dozen times and doubled the national debt. Obama could pull off a similar situation. Politics is all about perception not fact. So long as the debt doesn't collapse our system, Obama can walk away from it looking very good.
All that said, even if Obama is very popular after a second term it doesn't mean a democrat is a shoe in for the white house. The republicans will be pissed off and likely be organized and potentially could have better candidates than they have now and the people will be ready for a change.