“If the GOP’s ’12 nominee was out there, wouldn’t that person already have a considerable following? After all, conservatives and Republicans right now are displaying unprecedented enthusiasm, energy, and engagement about the coming midterm elections. That’s largely why Republicans are poised to make big gains next month. But given this GOP excitement, it’s striking that — outside of Sarah Palin (and she could be more exciting to the media than to the base) — none of it has rubbed off the potential ’12 Republicans…

“In 2006, due to his rock-star status campaigning for other Democrats, political observers could already sense that Obama would be a BIG deal if he ran for president. Ditto Hillary Clinton, whose march to Senate re-election was attracting plenty of buzz. Right now, the only Republican outside of Palin who’s even approaching the same buzz that Obama and Clinton received in ’06 is someone who has said he won’t run: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. There are A LOT of 2012 GOPers traveling the country (Romney, Pawlenty, Huckabee, Santorum, etc), and none is even close to getting real buzz in the base of the party right now.”

***
“Does Bolton consider himself the only Republican in the current speculative presidential field equipped with the chops to outperform President Obama on a national stage? ‘It’s a fair question, and I’m not going to answer it, and I’ll tell you why,’ he replies. ‘I’m going to strain every muscle to follow Ronald Reagan’s 11th Commandment—Thou Shalt Not speak ill of another Republican. I’m not saying these other candidates can’t talk about national security and foreign policy issues, and they will over time. But I believe that [the GOP] nominee must be in a position to not just hold his or her own with Obama in these debates, but to demonstrate a superior vision for the United States’ role in the world, and say how they as president would accomplish it. It has to go beyond talking points and platitudes.’ Bolton continues that the Republican primary debates ‘will be very beneficial in that regard,’ before quickly adding, ‘if I get to that point, which is a big if.’…

“Reiterating a point he made to the Daily Caller, Bolton confirms he’s willing to rankle some social conservatives by positioning himself to the Left of President Obama by explicitly voicing support for gay marriage. ‘I think [same-sex marriage] is something that in society today, we ought to be able to live with,’ he says. ‘I don’t, however, think this is a matter to be adjudicated in federal courts. I don’t think the Constitution speaks to the question at all. It’s an issue that ought to be primarily decided at the state level, rather than being handed down by judicial edict.’…

“As for the question of whether a President Bolton would be perceived as unacceptably dogmatic in the eyes of American allies abroad, Bolton rejects the premise. ‘I wrote about this in my book. [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel once said to President Bush, ‘I wish I had your ambassador in New York, rather than mine,” he says. ‘The fact is, I am a plain-speaker, and in America, plain speaking is a virtue. Although they may not say it publicly, foreign diplomats will tell you in private that they think it’s a virtue, too. People want to know where America stands.'”

***
“The second reason Obama will likely win reelection is, oddly, the economy. Historically, when voters evaluate a president for reelection, they judge the economy not against some abstract standard but against the economy he inherited. That’s why Franklin Roosevelt could win 48 states in 1936 with the U.S. still mired in depression, and Ronald Reagan could win 49 in 1984, even though unemployment on Election Day was still 7.5 percent. Obama doesn’t need the economy to be booming in 2012 to win reelection, he just needs voters to feel that it is better than it was when he took office and heading in the right direction. If that’s the case, and most economists seem to think it will be, Republicans won’t get very far by harping on the deficit. In 1984, you may remember, a presidential candidate told voters to ignore the nation’s nascent economic recovery and focus instead of the country’s swelling debt. His name was Walter Mondale.

“Finally, Obama’s third big advantage is his opposition: the GOP. The party has had great success in mobilizing older white conservatives, who weren’t particularly fond of Obama in the first place, and in a midterm like this one, in which younger and minority voters don’t turn out, their rage will loom large. But this very short-term success is preventing the GOP from grappling with its deeper problems attracting the Hispanic and “Millennial” generation voters who tilted heavily to the Democrats in 2008 and will comprise an even larger share of the electorate in 2012. As Schwarzenegger suggests, a GOP victory this fall will likely exacerbate the problem. With the Tea Party shaping the congressional GOP, the party’s immigration views will further alienate Hispanics…

“It’s hard to recognize it now, with the economy in the tank and Democrats running for cover, but take a step back and you can see that we’re still probably in the early stages of an era of Democratic dominance. It’s going to be a while before another Republican wins the White House, and when they do, I bet they have less in common with Sarah Palin than with Arnold himself.”