Hillary The Democrat Nominee? Obama Will Not Step Aside

Obama’s poll numbers are tanking and not just because independents have soured on the President. His poll numbers are dropping among Democrats. After the Scott Walker victory there were more than a few liberal Democrats who openly talked about Obama stepping out of the way so that Hillary Clinton could be the party’s nominee in 2012. That talk died quickly but it seems to be making a comeback. Hillary has an approval rating in the mid 60′s while Obama’s approval rating is in the low 40′s.

Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune, Obama’s hometown paper, has been the first to call for the President to step aside. Chapman opines that there’s just no point in Obama getting elected to a second term because most second terms are a waste of time and never as good as the first term. That alone makes the case to vote against Obama, can you imagine it getting any worse than this? He also opines that the Republicans will have control of the Senate and thus the entire Congress. Chapman suggests that from the Obama standpoint he wouldn’t be able to get anything done and thus the second term serves no purpose.

Chapman makes some decent enough points. Second terms are usually not quite as good as a first term. There can be more gridlock because Congress generally shifts against the President’s party. But this didn’t stop Reagan or Clinton from having fairly successful second term’s. This is perhaps because they were capable of playing political ball with the other party, unlike President Obama who appears to be incapable of doing much of anything unless he has complete dictatorial power.

Chapman wants Hillary to run in Obama’s place. Her approval rating is significantly higher than Obama’s and if she ran there’s a chance she could save Congress and the White House for the Democrats. I don’t know about Congress but Hillary can definitely save the White House for the Democrats. In fact, if she is the Democrat’s nominee next year she will win easily over any Republican candidate. For that reason, Republicans ought to be scared to death that Obama steps aside. Hillary is popular, she’s stayed out of the political fray over the last three years and she’s seen as a competent Democrat compared to Obama’s incompetence (this isn’t far off). No Republican candidate can hold a candle to Hillary in terms of popularity right now.

While the GOP should be scared to death that Hillary becomes the nominee we can at least sleep at night knowing she will not be. It’s getting to late for her to mount a serious primary challenge to Obama. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if she’s eying an Obama defeat and a run for President as the savior of the Democrats in 2016. That sort of campaign is right up the Clinton’s alley.

As much as Steve Chapman and other Hillary supporters (as well as a legion of far left progressives who are never happy) want Obama to step aside he simply won’t do it. Obama has never put the good of the Democrat Party above himself. He’s one of the most narcissistic President’s we’ve had in a generation. We’re talking about a man who had the unmitigated audacity to give a campaign speech in Berlin in 2008 as though he were running for President of the world. He isn’t going to step aside so that ‘likable enough’ Hillary, whom he defeated in a bitter primary, can be the Democrats nominee instead of him. That just isn’t in Obama’s playbook.

If Obama is going down he’s going to take the entire Democrat Party with him and I suspect he doesn’t care. In fact, I suspect he doesn’t see defeat coming around the corner. He didn’t seem to in 2010. It was almost a surprise to Obama when the Republicans took 63 seats in the House. The Democrats only hope at this point (aside from a miraculous economic turnaround) is that a handful of Senate candidates successfully distance themselves from Obama during their campaign. Otherwise, the rout may very well be on next year.