Barack Obama, the luckiest politician alive
Last weekend Saturday Night Live opened its 1,000,000th season with “Barack Obama” marveling at his recent good fortune. But in truth the evidence of Obama’s almost superhuman luck has been mounting for years. It started in 2006, when Obama first decided to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois. Republicans in the state sensed Obama’s potential, so who from among a long list of qualified candidates did they choose to challenge him? A failed presidential candidate from Maryland, Alan Keyes. Yes, the same Alan Keyes who staged a hunger strike when he was excluded from a debate, who once threw himself into a mosh pit, and who can predict how Jesus will vote in various elections. The same Alan Keyes who had a television show on MSNBC that his producers viciously titled “Alan Keyes Is Making Sense”—a program during which Keyes inexplicably changed from a suit to a sweater in the middle of each show.
Then, in 2008, presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton ignored the polls and the advice of some of her aides, and decided to compete to win in Iowa, where she was running third. Her decision made Obama’s eventual victory all the more devastating, leaving her literally in tears. Obama never really looked back, even as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright hit the airwaves and a tape leaked out where he belittled those who “cling to their guns and religion.” Colin Powell jumped on board the bandwagon, then Oprah.
This year, of all the people the Republican electorate could have picked to challenge Obama, they choose the guy who lost to McCain four years earlier or, as someone once put it, “the guy who lost to the guy who lost.” Maybe the “birthers” have a point after all. Obama obviously wasn’t born in America; he was born on Fantasy Island, under a rainbow, in a pot of gold, serenaded by unicorns.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Do they think Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum would be faring better?
changer1701 on September 20, 2012 at 9:01 PM
Liberals are deluded.
rickv404 on September 20, 2012 at 9:05 PM
Some people around here do. They’d be dead wrong. They think Romney’s problems are due to his (perceived) lack of conservatism, which as that shiny-object leaked video would show is total bullcrap.
Romney’s the best of all who ran. We’d be getting the same media sniper fire, just on different things, if one of the others ran. And Obama would still be getting the biggest media shield this country has ever witnessed.
Only with the cover he’s getting can one of our ambassadors get killed and somehow Romney’s to blame. This is such infuriating sh*t.
KingGold on September 20, 2012 at 9:05 PM
The river of liberal tears will be the nectar of the gods.
Rixon on September 20, 2012 at 9:08 PM
Romney’s the best of all who ran.
SagebrushPuppet on September 20, 2012 at 9:09 PM
Yes.
Both would have fought back more than Romney has thus far, both would have done more articulating their own vision for the future, both would have been more trustworthy, and neither of them would have made Romney’s 47 percent gaffe.
Stoic Patriot on September 20, 2012 at 9:10 PM
Obama isn’t lucky, he’s surrounded by an army of media prostitutes that lie to dumb people 24/7. Were that not the case, neither Obama nor any other Dem would ever win another national election.
Blacksheep on September 20, 2012 at 9:11 PM
Obama’s charmed career has little to do with “luck”, and everything to do with the media’s insistence that he get away (figurative) murder.
Count to 10 on September 20, 2012 at 9:11 PM
Barack Obama, the biggest hoax alive in American history.
petefrt on September 20, 2012 at 9:13 PM
Romney’s the best of all who ran.
If you want to get into the weeds of why Christie, Daniels, Palin, Pence, et alia didn’t have the balls to run this year, you’re welcome to do so.
The sorry slate of people who stepped up this time can’t hold a candle to the bench we have going forward. Unfortunately, time is the only luxury we don’t appear to have. If Romney doesn’t win in November, things are going to get very bad very fast.
KingGold on September 20, 2012 at 9:13 PM
Neither would receive as much as 47% of the popular vote.
aunursa on September 20, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Barack Obama, TFG is a stuttering clusterf__k of a miserable failure/tyrant.
Rixon on September 20, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Robert Heinlein had a different, tongue-in-cheek definition of “luck,” and Obama has little enough of that.
HitNRun on September 20, 2012 at 9:17 PM
HEEEEEELLLLL YES!!!!
Santorum would have been able to beat Obama on the economy because he is AUTHENTIC and not someone who changes his mind EVERY F’N DAY!!
Can.I.be.in.the.middle on September 20, 2012 at 9:17 PM
You make your own luck.
urban elitist on September 20, 2012 at 9:18 PM
If having a completely complicit and compliant Pimp Media Machine is considered “lucky”, then sure.
profitsbeard on September 20, 2012 at 9:18 PM
Don’t be too sure.
Granted, it’s not your magic number of 47, but it was a lead. And in the swing states, there was also polling earlier that showed this.
The idea that Romney was somehow so electable while Santorum would never stand a chance was without solid reasoning.
Stoic Patriot on September 20, 2012 at 9:19 PM
At this rate, we better be hoping that the debates help Mitt. He might not eve get that 47%…Ramussen has O up again today.
Can.I.be.in.the.middle on September 20, 2012 at 9:22 PM
Agreed!
Can.I.be.in.the.middle on September 20, 2012 at 9:24 PM
Why aren’t you citing the polls that have Herman Cain leading the GOP field by a large margin?
Oh, right. Because they’re old and irrelevant.
KingGold on September 20, 2012 at 9:24 PM
Wow, if any of you haven’t actually went over there and watched the vid with Tina Brown and the two dudes that are probably, at this very moment, tugging the hell out of each other discussing how Romney is done, incompetent blah blah..
You need to see it…
BigWyo on September 20, 2012 at 9:26 PM
That and they’re not head-to-head polls of Cain v Obama. Unlike Cain, Santorum also doesn’t have a sex scandal dogging him.
Stoic Patriot on September 20, 2012 at 9:26 PM
I wonder if the rest of the article is this sloppy. I’ll pass.
CJ on September 20, 2012 at 9:26 PM
Erhhh… wut? Jack Ryan says hello? Obama would not have won, if it weren’t for sleazy Dem politics.
And 2006? He ran in 2004. Who the bleep checked this article? It’s not like this occurred in 1982.
strictnein on September 20, 2012 at 9:27 PM
{ think you meant to say “Obama would not have won if Ryan had not been a world class sleazebag.”
urban elitist on September 20, 2012 at 9:29 PM
With bribes, favors, and all around dirty tricks if you are Obama.
Count to 10 on September 20, 2012 at 9:31 PM
Sealed divorce records that just magically become unsealed for Obama, right?
Count to 10 on September 20, 2012 at 9:33 PM
Clinton is luckier.
Newt & Bill Gates made the 1990s economy boom, but we gave Billy credit for it.
itsnotaboutme on September 20, 2012 at 9:35 PM
Obama is only lucky the entire hoax has not come crumbling down before now.
Mitsouko on September 20, 2012 at 9:35 PM
I think you meant that Barack Obama’s first opponent at the state and national level both had their private court records unsealed by friendly judges. But it’s all just a big coincidence, right?
But a lib like you would never support someone who was a “sleazebag”, right? Clinton, Edwards, Kennedy x2, etc etc. Is it clear yet that you’re a hypocrite or do we need to continue?
strictnein on September 20, 2012 at 9:36 PM
Oh, so that’s what they call “Affirmative Action” these days. Being “lucky”.
As Geraldine Ferraro said, if he was white, he wouldn’t be half as “lucky”.
Marcus on September 20, 2012 at 9:39 PM
Bitterly clinging to a false narrative.
urban elitist on September 20, 2012 at 9:40 PM
Records legally unsealed to reveal that his opponents were — even by my expansive standards — sleazebags. It’s not a coincidence, and it’s not luck. It’s a candidate who plays smashmouth football against arrogant opponents and kicks their ass. Like he’s doing to Millionaire Mitt.
If Geraldine Ferraro was a decent candidate she’d have Chuck Schumer’s seat. And if she wasn’t a woman, she’d have never been the VP. The difference between Gerry and Barry is that he actually won elections.
urban elitist on September 20, 2012 at 9:48 PM
You know what makes Obama lucky? The press, after all Obama has had gaffes, plenty of them but somehow the media does not hyperventilate over them…and the willingness of conservatives to eat their own…that has always been secret weapon for Democrats. It seems to me that Romney and Ryan both have made great pains to lay out a vision that is far different from Obama’s but then some people only notice the things they like to criticize.
As for Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich,they had mistakes and gaffes of their own. There is a reason that Santorum lost his last Senate race in Penn by 18 points..I can only imagine what the Democrats would do to him on social issues..He is not exactly immune to gaffes..such as the greatest threat to America is single mothers. Or Gingrich’s remarks about Spanish being the language of the ghetto…and those are just a couple of gaffes..there were plenty more.
The point is no one is going to get out there and talk on the trail every day and go to all those fund raisers and not say something sometime that sounds off or wrong just plain dumb…
But at this point the need of the ABRs to continue to complain about Romney rather than concentrate on going after Obama is more frustrating to me than anything Romney has said.
Terrye on September 20, 2012 at 9:53 PM
That is not a narrative, it is a fact.
Terrye on September 20, 2012 at 9:56 PM
Ryan was a choir boy compared to Bill Clinton.
Terrye on September 20, 2012 at 9:58 PM
Not that you know of…but then again, his wife does have a really strange past.
Terrye on September 20, 2012 at 9:59 PM
That argument would make more sense if Santorum had actually beat Romney…but apparently this oh so electable candidate could not beat the guy you are complaining about.
Terrye on September 20, 2012 at 10:01 PM
Cling, my friend. And when Obama puts Romney out of the game with a legal but brutal downfield hit, console yourself with the idea that your lightweight candidate might have won if only the world weren’t so mean.
Oh, and list the indictments for the bribes, etc, when you get a chance. Are they like Romeny taking $50K from contributors and promising to cut their taxes in return?
urban elitist on September 20, 2012 at 10:01 PM
Romney also had a few advantages going for him, including:
1.) He’d previously ran
2.) He had much greater financial resources
3.) Establishment & conservative media support
Despite all of that, don’t forget that Santorum also gave Romney a 3-state drubbing in one night (MO, MN, and CO) after he was already supposed to be dead as a candidate since he hadn’t won a contest since IA (which in an d of itself he was originally declared to have lost).
Santorum also would not have said that he takes being called the grandfather of Obamacare as a compliment.
So sure, there’s plenty of reason to think that Santorum would be doing better as a candidate, particularly when you take a look at the second link I supplied of the “core four.” Of those 4, Romney currently only leads in 1, but the other 3 are essential to the 3-2-1 strategy. Right now, Romney’s at best tied in Florida, and is marginally-to-solidly losing both Virginia and Ohio.
Stoic Patriot on September 20, 2012 at 10:12 PM
Another wayward thought: Santorum also significantly overperformed in light of the amount of debate time he had been given.
Media coverage matters. He got nearly none, but worked Iowa hard and got to where he was on his own.
Stoic Patriot on September 20, 2012 at 10:17 PM
It’s funny that Obama referred to Paul Ryan as “Jack Ryan” the other day.
Paul-Cincy on September 20, 2012 at 10:24 PM
It’s pretty entertaining watching journalists live in an alternate America where gasoline is cheap, we’re at full-employment, the Middle East turned out OK, US troops are returning from Afghanistan, and happy days are here again.
Barry is out of steam, urban prole. He’s running on media hype and skewed polls in the desperate hope that the Big $$$ will swing back to him.
IT WON’T.
The whole strategy of Team Barry is to present the illusion he has the “Big Mo” and get people back on board fired up, contributing, and volunteering.
THEY’RE NOT.
In the end, starting in the final weeks, Romney is going to unleash a barrage of advertising that will drown out both Barry and the MSM’s message and *remind* voters just how bad we have it right now. It will be complete and total demoralization — the same demoralization I felt when Newt was utterly hammered in Iowa.
There will be nothing Barry can do to counter it and they know it. They don’t have the $$$, the people, or the support this time around.
This isn’t 2008 and Barry has a pretty dismal record he’s trying to run away from.
It’s over, urban prole. Your side lost and it’s time for you to start thinking about Clinton or Warner 2016 — oh, and the much, much more moderate DLC.
Punchenko on September 20, 2012 at 10:25 PM
Can you FB folks see my comment? If you can understand one thing. The majority of registered HA commenters want nothing to do with bringing FB anywhere near this site. The site will be ruined if this were to occur.
Bmore on September 20, 2012 at 10:39 PM
For Zero it isn’t luck it’s privilege.
A failure at virtually everything Oblamer has played nothing but privilege cards all his life. The race card, hidden grades card, obviously fake birth certificate card… The Affirmative-action card, the envy card, the eat-my-waffle card, the blame Bush card, the Let Sleazy Eric Holder Investigate Himself card, the go on suck-up pervert Letterman to avoid the Libya 9/11 consulate killings card etc.
viking01 on September 20, 2012 at 10:53 PM
Your slip is showing again, madam. She never was VP, but in your mind.
Difficultas_Est_Imperium on September 20, 2012 at 11:20 PM
Ferraro was a tragic figure of pain and loss brought largely about by political wishful thinking, gynocentric myopia and the detrimental effects of having a Liberal lifestyle and associates.
viking01 on September 20, 2012 at 11:29 PM