Talk of Obama’s resignation is heating up:
Democrats will be looking at a massacre in the Senate, and that’s not even including already-endangered seats in Nebraska, Missouri, Montana, and New Mexico, which just elected its first Republican woman governor last year. Democrats could wind up losing enough seats to give Republicans a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate if Obama chases away the white working-class vote that he’s been alienating for the past two years on ObamaCare and now his disastrous economic performance. If unemployment starts rising and growth remains low in the next few months, Democrats may insist on Obama finding a graceful exit before the primaries.
And guess who that leaves with an open path to the Democratic nomination? Hillary Clinton. She can step into the void with promises to return America to the economic policies of her husband. The Left may not have much love for Hillary any longer, but she was winning the very working-class Democrats in the 2008 primaries that Obama is losing to the Republicans now. States like Pennsylvania and Michigan would snap back into place for Democrats, and perhaps Wisconsin as well. Having Obama off the top of the ticket would take some of the downward pressure off of some other Senate races, and Hillary would likely be a plus in most.
If Hillary took Obama’s place in 2012, Republicans would face a much tougher electoral map. They would still have the advantage of running against Obama’s record, but the GOP may not capture that disaffected Democratic working-class vote if Hillary also ran against Obamanomics and promised a return to Clintonian prosperity.
That prediction from last summer isn’t looking quite so wildly insane now, is it…. Of course, if I do turn out to be correct, the only logical explanation will be that I have a Five-Pound Brain.