This Obama campaign is boring

But 2012? Wake me when it’s over. Unlike 2004, it’s not likely to offer much suspense. Barack Obama will almost certainly win because, well, incumbents usually win. In recent memory, the only incumbents who have lost reelection have had significant primary challenges: Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1992. To find an incumbent who has lost without a major primary challenge, you have to go back to Herbert Hoover in 1932. That’s because unified parties can orchestrate a large base turnout and unified parties give presidents the freedom to move to the center, as Ronald Reagan did in 1984 on arms control, Bill Clinton did in 1996 on welfare reform, and George W. Bush did in 2004 on prescription drugs. Yes, Obama is presiding over a lousy economy, but presidents have won reelection with lousy economies before. The country was still in the Depression in 1936, and FDR won 48 states. Reagan won 49 in 1984 when unemployment was north of 7 percent. An incumbent with a unified party can survive a recession—comfortably—if there’s some glimmer that the worst is over. None of this is particularly exciting, but it’s true…

And if 2012 won’t be exciting-close like 2004, it won’t be exciting-inspiring like 2008 either. Obama will argue that he’s prevented economic collapse and passed some useful legislation and he’ll scare people about the prospect of Tea Party government. But he’ll never evoke the passion that he did in 2008. Democrats now take it for granted that we have a president who is black and not named George W. Bush. Those things don’t feel so exhilarating anymore. Two years of Obama have made it clear what a liberal president can and cannot do: He can pass a universal health-care law, just not a particularly good one; he can appoint pro-choice Supreme Court justices; he can’t close Guantanamo Bay. Once upon a time, liberals could imagine that there was no limit to what a President Obama might achieve. Now that limit is set by John Boehner.