{"id":300,"date":"2008-02-14T20:21:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-14T20:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2008\/02\/14\/300\/"},"modified":"2015-02-25T20:16:27","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T01:16:27","slug":"300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=300","title":{"rendered":"Obama — A Carter or a Kennedy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Heilermann<\/a> points out that after Tuesday\u2019s primary results in Maryland, Virginia and DC, Barack Obama is looking like the heir apparent. Heilermann also thinks that Obama could either be the next John Kennedy or the next Jimmy Carter. Let me expand on that thought by not assuming the outcome in November. Let\u2019s expand our consideration to include two other Democratic presidential candidates who came out of nowhere to rally the party to their cause (but lost to the GOP). Those candidates would be Michael Dukakis (1988) and George McGovern (1972).<\/p>\n

So now we have more of a range. McGovern was arguably the worst of the worst; he never ever had a chance against Nixon. Dukakis, by contrast, did seem viable at first; polls in May and June of 1988 showed him running ahead of George H.W. Bush. But within a few months, Bush would take a commanding lead and would trounce the Duke in the general election. Next on the spectrum is Jimmy Carter, who won the election but then lost the Presidency (and I still contend that he was the unluckiest President of the 20th Century, or at least tied with Woodrow Wilson). Finally, there is JFK, the guy who won the election and did a good job as President until that black day in Dallas in November of 1963. <\/p>\n

So which overall scenario will best fit Barack Obama? Yes, I know; let Obama be Obama. His campaign and his Presidency (if he is elected) won\u2019t be exactly like those of any of these four past Presidents (and God forbid he should have an ending anything like Kennedy\u2019s). But still, the point remains \u2013 there is a lot of uncertainty about Obama. We are breaking new historical ground here. The powers-that-be in the Democratic Party seem ready to take the risk, bolstered by polls showing favorable public attitudes, good outcomes in head-to-heads against McCain, and by Obama’s fundraising success. But public opinion is fickle. I hope that Barack Obama is truly the stuff of American greatness, the next tall man from Illinois to rise up to reconcile a fractured nation. We shall see — with prayers again that he doesn’t end up like Lincoln did!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Heilermann points out that after Tuesday\u2019s primary results in Maryland, Virginia and DC, Barack Obama is looking like the heir apparent. Heilermann also thinks that Obama could either be the next John Kennedy or the next Jimmy Carter. Let me expand on that thought by not assuming the outcome in November. Let\u2019s expand our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5206,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300\/revisions\/5206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}