what factors may influence newspaper writings
Many Factors Poised to Influence the Presidential Race
January-B AIM Report
As we move down the presidential primary path, most of the media attention is rightly focused on who the Republicans will pick to be their nominee. With Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum each having won a single state primary or caucus in January heading into the Florida primary, it is looking like this race could extend for months before finally settling on a candidate. It might not get resolved until the Republican convention in late August in Tampa Bay, Florida. The script has changed so many times already that no one can comfortably predict what will happen, and when this will become a contest between Republicans and Democratsas opposed to among Republicansover their competing visions for the future of this country.
But it is highly questionable if this Novembers election is really going to come down to a simple matter of competing visions. There are numerous other factorsand potential factorsalready at work, with still others being planned that could play a major role in the outcome of the election.
It is becoming increasingly clear that President Barack Obamas estimated billion-dollar campaign machine is planning a multi-front battle plan to win re-election. To a certain extent that is the reality of political contests today. However, evidence is mounting that this election will be like none before it, both in terms of the role of the media and the specter of legal and political maneuvering being undertaken to help ensure victory for Obama.
With the RealClearPolitics average of polls showing that 65% of likely U.S. voters say the country is on the wrong track, the Republican nominee, whoever that turns out to be, should be able to defeat Obama. The unemployment rate and the massive deficits normally would be enough to ensure that. But the question this year is whether or not Obama can convince enough voters that a) the mess he inherited was worse than everyone thought, but at least were moving in the right direction; b) his vision is kinder, more fair, and ultimately better for the country than whomever the Republicans run against him; and c) if the Republicans hadnt obstructed him at every turn, we would be much farther along.
For many reasons, those are all tough sells. But Team Obama is not taking any chances, and they are attempting to create enough havoc and diversions that they can win the election, regardless of the state of the economy, the overwhelming sentiment to repeal ObamaCare, and the widely held belief that Obama prefers to ignore Congress, and the Constitution, and run the country through a series of unaccountable czars, bureaucratic regulations and executive orders.
A recent attempt to end-run Congress and the Constitution was the recess appointments of Richard Cordray to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a creation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, and three members of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), at a time when the Senate was not actually in recess. When President Obama announced the appointments, he said that he refused to take no for an answer. He said that when Congress doesnt act, he has an obligation to do so. Actually, the system of keeping the Senate in pro forma sessions so that the president cannot make such appointments was established by Sen. Reid during the Bush administration, which honored the arrangement.
