one-term presidency? let's take a look at lichtman's 13 keys to the presidency

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political scientist allan lichtman developed a very effective method for predicting the result of presidential elections. there are 13 "keys" or true/false questions. if more than half are true, the incumbent party wins, otherwise they lose.

here they are:

Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

it's too early to know everything for sure, but we can get some insight.

Party Mandate: we picked up 21 house seats in 2008, and while the incumbent party usually lose seats in off year elections, losing 21 seats is not particularly likely especially if we're clearly out of the recession by then. i'll given this one, tentatively, to obama.
Contest: barring a disaster, obama's very likely to be an automatic renomination. this was part of the genius of selecting hillary for state. key goes to obama.
Incumbency: key goes to obama.
Third party: no obvious movement toward this happening, but impossible to tell at this point.
Short term economy: given the natural timing of recessions, it's very likely we will not be in one in 2012. key goes to obama.
Long term economy: i have us growing at about 1.9% annualized during the shrub years. we're starting of at a deficit, but allowing for a zero in q3, we need to average about 2.3% for the rest of obama's first term. not a slam-dunk, but hardly a difficult target assuming we are actually coming out of this recession. this key leans toward obama, but i can't give it to him just yet.
Policy change: obama gets this if he passes health care OR energy reform, or possibly something else. this is the ONE key republican seem to be pinning their hopes on. i think there's a clear mandate to do SOMETHING that at least LOOKS like a major policy change, but let's give this to the republicans just for fun.
Social unrest: impossible to say at this point, although republicans are all about engineering social unrest these days. let's give it to the republicans because they can insist on it.
Scandal: so far the obama group seems squeak clean, but one never knows.
Foreign/military failure: too soon to tell.
Foreign/military success: too soon to tell.
Incumbent charisma: oh, hell yes! obama wins this one.
Challenger charisma: too soon to tell, but this one leans obama.

results?

i give obama the following keys:

contest
incumbency
short term economy
incumbent charisma

these lean toward obama:

party mandate
long term economy
challenger charisma

these are republican keys:

policy change
social unrest


these are the unknowns:

third party
scandal
foreign/military success
foreign/military failure


BOTTOM LINE: even with failure to pass healthcare and energy reform, AND assuming social unrest, a third party candidacy, a scandal, a foreign/military failure and no foreign/military success, i still have a majority of the 13 keys at least leaning toward obama.

so the republicans are engaging in quite a bit of wishful thinking if they are pinning obama's re-election solely on their efforts to block his agenda. they need to hope for quite a lot of bad news for obama in order to win the white house in 2012.

[Clio the Leo]

1. And the NEW 14th key is.......

"The dude's name is Barack Obama." ;)

[bluestateguy]

2. I think a big factor is having no terrorist attacks on US soil (by Islamic terrorists)

Hopefully, we will be able to make that contrast:

Bush's 1st term, worst terror attack in history
Obama's 1st term no terrorist attacks on US soil.

A Democratic president just cannot politically get away with allowing a terrorist attack to happen. A Republican can get away with it. That's not fair, but it's just the way things are.

[TheKentuckian]

4. There is no allowing really though

If I were to go off he deep end tomorrow there would be nothing that could be done about it. ANYBODY could walk into a Wally World and just blow the place to hell without a word.

I have some questions about a terrorist threat of any magnitude, how could they really be stopped? A crowded store, movie theater, or mall in middle America would instill as much fear as hitting the Trade Center or the Pentagon and someone could do that with a backpack and the will and calm to pull it off. I might be way off base on this but if this was a true and organized threat they would just sneak in either border in very small cells and strike fear into the heart of the country.

Either the threat is a fraud, it is incompetent (and therefore a fraud), or insanely unlucky. Think about in a practical way, what could a government of a free country possibly do to stop small groups from sneaking in and making explosions all over the place. I grant they could catch many or even mot but if you keep sending them in by the hundreds all spread out with no knowledge of the other groups, A FEW would get through and do damage. Especially, when all the people welcome death. Smaller acts with greater frequency and little preference for location would induce much more fear and create more havoc than 9/11 easy.

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7. realistically, small-scale bombings in crowded places can't be stopped.

just look at the british history with the ira. they had decades to figure it out and they couldn't, because you can't, without completely shutting down anything resembling normal life.

politically, the u.s. is infantile in its response to terrorism in part because we don't have a long history of being victims of it. that and having an infantile president during 9/11.


the best response is to let the security people do their thing within reason and be smart and resourceful about it, but for the most part, to ignore it. as long as terrorist think it's effective, they'll keep doing it.



when it comes to presidential politics, the standards are vastly different for the two parties on a host of levels. 9/11 was a huge win for shrub, but iran's hostage taking was a disaster for carter. shrub and the gang got away with a whole slew of things that were (or should be) criminal, but clinton was impeached for a blowjob.

[grantcart]

3. Lichtman's model won't apply this time because most of the time

the Republicans are united behind a clear heir apparent.


The Republicans are even less united than they were a year ago.

McCain's appointment of Palin comes after Bush's appointment of Cheney leading no clear line of succession.


Republicans can function if they have a clear successor to fall in line with. Now however they have to have a bloddy 'fight to the death' between the realists, the financial conservatives, and the true believers.

[StevieM]

5. I think Romney will win and the GOP will get behind him. But if we can pass a really good health

care plan then I think Obama will have an excellent chance at re-election. Because then the Republicans will have to run on repealing it, which the American people won't support. Also, if the economy is recovering, then that helps a lot too.

I see what you're saying, but at the end of the day there has to be a GOP nominee. Someone will win it, somehow. And when they do I think the rest of the party will fall into line--they desperately want to defeat Obama. Fortunately, we're the ones on the right side of the issues.

Steve

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8. who becomes the nominee depends in large part on how vulnerable obama is

if the incumbent is perceived as quite likely to be re-elected, then you get a bob dole or a walter mondale caliber nominee. someone who becomes the nominee because it's their turn rather than because you look at them and say wow, that guy's gonna be president some day.

bloody primary or not, if obama is vulnerable, republicans will unite behind their primary winner and they'll have a good shot. but if obama is not particularly vulnerable, no serious contender will risk being a big loser.

[Uzybone]

6. Throw out third party and scandal

There will be no viable 3rd party on the left...we are too splintered already. If a 3rd party appears on the right it will be a completely facist party...guaranteed to win less than 5%.

Scandal: The President emerged without any taint from the shithole that is Illinois politics (Rezko was BS). I think he is pretty clean and disciplined.

foreign/military success: so far so good. Pirates, NK journalists, Foreign policy in general has been handled with complete professionalism.

foreign/military failure: This is my only fear. Afghanistan. :(