Salon.com > Matthew Dickinson

The one reason President Hillary might be more effective than President Obama

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:39:00 +0000

The New York Times Magazine is jumping into the Hillary for President debate with a new piece by Rebecca Traister. Citing a Daily Beast article by Leslie Bennetts, which in turns draws heavily on my initial "Run, Hillary, Run" post in Salon, Traister -- a Clinton supporter in 2008 -- tries to tamp down the growing buyer’s remorse she detects among Obama supporters. She writes:

"Rather than reveling in these flights of reverse political fancy, I find myself wanting the revisionist Hillary fantasists -- Clintonites and reformed Obamamaniacs alike -- to just shut up already."

Run, Hillary, run!

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:43:00 +0000

This originally appeared at Presidential Power

If I were a Democrat (and I'm only posing as one here!), this would be why I think Hillary Clinton should challenge Barack Obama in 2012.

To begin, the president is in deep political trouble. I presented some basic economic indicators earlier that show the historical comparisons indicating that Obama is in Jimmy Carter territory. These are crude measures, of course. But more sophisticated forecast models, such as Yale economist Ray Fair’s, which uses per capita growth of real Gross Domestic Product during the three quarters preceding the election; the growth in inflation during the incumbent’s term; and the number of quarters during the incumbent’s term in which real GDP grows by more than 3.2 percent to predict the popular vote, now show Obama winning slightly less than 50 percent of 2012 popular vote. Given current economic projections, there’s not likely to be any more strong growth quarters between now and November 2012, meaning the odds for Obama’s reelection are probably not going to get better. To be sure, most of the political science forecast models don’t kick in until a year from now, so it’s a bit early to rely on them. But if Clinton is going to run, she can’t wait. And right now Obama is very vulnerable to a strong Republican challenger.

Obama didn’t “cave” on the debt ceiling

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:58:00 +0000

This originally appeared at Presidential Power

In his first public comments since the budget agreement (at least the first that I have heard or read), a somber President Obama went on national television Sunday tonight to issue a short statement in which he urged Republicans and Democrats to sign off on the debt deal under consideration in both congressional chambers. The question now is whether Harry Reid and John Boehner can rally their party caucuses to support this -- already there are signs that some Republicans are worrying about the impact on defense if the Congress can’t support the joint committee’s recommendations next November. That failure will activate the debt "trigger," including automatic cuts in defense spending. We’ll know more Monday about whether the agreement will hold, after both caucuses are briefed and, presumably, a vote will follow.