Sobre la reelección de Obama

David Axelrod, estratega jefe de la campaña presidencial de Obama en 2008 y ahora consejero principal de la Casa Blanca, anunció ayer que abandonará Washington DC en verano de 2011 para instalarse en Chicago y empezar a preparar la operación para reelegir al Presidente. Es la primera prueba que tenemos de que Obama ya ha tomado la decisión de competir en 2012, y llegó el mismo día que en un artículo de opinión del Washington Post dos veteranos consultores demócratas invitaban al Presidente a considerar la idea de renunciar a un segundo mandato.

Al respecto de la reelección de Obama, recupero un artículo de Jonathan V. Last publicado hace unos días en el Weekly Standard. Echando la vista atrás, Last advierte a Obama que rara vez un Presidente que haya perdido base electoral en su primer mandato ha conseguido salir reelegido. Un Presidente que gana la reelección acostumbra a hacerlo ampliando su anterior registro en votos populares y votos electorales (estados). Sólo hay dos excepciones en la historia: Franklin Delano Roosevelt en 1940 -esta es una excepción engañosa ya que era la segunda reelección de FDR quien en 1936 sí que amplió su base electoral; y Andrew Jackson en el Siglo XIX.

La mala noticia para Obama es que a día de hoy sus posibilidades de reelección, altas ya que un Presidente en funciones siempre es favorito para ganar porque ya ha ganado una vez, pasan por una victoria más ajustada y problemática que la de 2008 contra McCain. No sólo por el resultado de las midterms o porque la economía no crezca lo suficiente para generar empleo, sino porque 1) Obama se ha convertido en una figura polarizante y no lo era hace dos años, y 2) las organizaciones externas vinculadas al GOP han superado a las demócratas en inversión en esta campaña electoral, y auguran una operación republicana mucho más potente que la de 2008.

Nuestra generación no ha visto que ningún Presidente haya conseguido materializar un escenario de victoria como el que maneja actualmente la Casa Blanca, ganar perdiendo terreno respecto a la primera elección.

(...) Of course, 24-month forecasts are a black box. Two years ago the Office of Management and Budget predicted that today’s unemployment rate would be 5.1 percent. Last Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the October unemployment level was 9.6 percent.

So what if it is high? Roosevelt won reelection in 1940 with unemployment at 14.6 percent. But that was a marked improvement from where it sat two years earlier, at 19 percent. Even if jobs were to mushroom over the next 24 months and the unemployment rate did drop to 8 percent, it would still be higher than it was when George W. Bush left office. People may not remember, but on the day Barack Obama was elected president, unemployment was 6.5 percent. In 2012 Republicans will remind everyone in America of this fact.

The final trend, however, is the most troubling for Obama, because it hints at an underlying problem with his presidency: Since FDR, no president has won reelection without enlarging his share of the popular vote.

Roosevelt was elected with 57 percent in 1932. He expanded his support to 61 percent four years later and saw it drop to a “mere” 55 percent in his third campaign. Since then, all successful reelections have featured an expansion of the president’s base. Eisenhower went from 55 percent to 57 percent; Nixon from 43 percent to 61 percent; Reagan from 51 percent to 59 percent; Clinton from 43 percent to 49 percent; George W. Bush from 48 percent to 51 percent.

These numbers suggest that an essential feature of successful presidents is that they find ways to broaden their coalitions. Doing the opposite—pursuing policies which shed support, but keep just enough of it to maintain a majority—is a very difficult needle to thread. How difficult? FDR in 1940 was the first president to do it since Andrew Jackson in 1832. And he had the Great Depression and World War II working in his favor and was starting from the second-highest popular-vote margin ever recorded.

Whatever one thinks of Obama’s political future, it is difficult to imagine him getting more than the 53 percent of the vote he commanded in 2008. For one thing, Obama’s first campaign was designed to allow him to be all things to all people. Almost by definition, his appeal cannot be broader than it was two years ago. And for another, Obama’s legislative agenda has dismantled his coalition with dazzling efficiency. He has lost support in every conceivable subgroup—from young voters to old, among both liberals and conservatives, among high school grads, college grads, and postgraduate professionals, too.

In order to win reelection, Obama must either dramatically reconfigure his presidency or titrate his loss of support in a manner so precise that only two American presidents have ever pulled it off. It’s difficult to tell which would be the tougher trick.

The other possibility, of course, is that he’s toast. (...)