A trifling little bit of schadenfreude memorabilia from Kylopod @ The Daily Kos:
Oct. 27, 2006: “[Obama] should run in ’08. He will lose in ’08. And the loss will put him irrevocably on a path to the presidency.” For him to win in ’08 would require a “miracle.” — Charles Krauthammer
Dec. 17, 2006: “Barack Obama is not going to beat Hillary Clinton in a single Democratic primary. I’ll predict that right now.” — William Kristol
Dec. 22, 2006: “Obama’s shot at the top will be short lived…. Hillary Inc. will grind up and spit out any Democratic challenger that gets in its way.” — Joe Scarborough
Mar. 19, 2007: “The right knows Obama is unelectable except perhaps against Attila the Hun.” — Mark Penn
&etc.
Of course, these could have been strategic pronouncements designed to influence voters – except the readers of these pundits are hardly a measurable percentage of voters – even likely voters. And deciphering any devious intent is more than I care to think about; so I will take them at face value and ask how these pundits could be so wrong about a man who won two Presidential elections (particularly in the face of the Bush disaster) and has displayed a competency quite beyond his predecessor, and arguably going quite a ways back – perhaps to Eisenhower.
But that may be truly unfair – like jury trials, voters are unpredictable in their choices – or lack thereof. Consider the overwhelming victory of Matt Bevin in the Kentucky gubernatorial race last week, as Steve Benen documents on MaddowBlog:
Arguably more than any other state, Kentucky has created an amazing health network. Under Gov. Steve Beshear’s (D) leadership, the state’s success story has served as a national model for overhauling an ineffective system, replacing it with an effective system that costs less and covers more.
And now it’s likely to be torn down on purpose. Gov.-elect Matt Bevin (R) ran on a platform of dismantling Kynect and scrapping Medicaid expansion on the state, despite the fact that it’s been a literal life-saver for many families in his adopted home state. Last week, the Republican won his race easily, offering him the opportunity to do exactly what he promised to do: gutting health security for much of Kentucky.
The obvious question, of course, is why voters who stood to lose so much would vote for a gubernatorial candidate intent on deliberately making their lives harder. Republican officials, however, assumed that many of these Kentuckians wouldn’t bother to show up on Election Day, and those assumptions largely proved true.
Wondering why, you can blame racism, psychology, several other possibilities, or my favorite – disinterest. That is, many voters have other things to do than ponder the nuances of national politics and how they may impact their lives on a practical level. Add in a real distaste for the apparent conduct in just about every party, and I suspect that most voters look for something they can hang their hat on – such as Bevin’s claims of being a political outsider – and go with it.
