Will Obama win reelection in 2014?

He's all in, according to the Washington Post:

Obama, fresh off his November reelection, began almost at once executing plans to win back the House in 2014, which he and his advisers believe will be crucial to the outcome of his second term and to his legacy as president.

The Post frames the enterprise as Obama "flipping the traditional script for ­second-term presidents"--tradition being that vigorous push to spend re-accumulated political capital in the first few months of a renewed, but abbreviated, presidency. However it may be more accurate to say that by necessity Obama's flipping the script for two-term presidents, in that he's constrained to bookending his eight presidential years--two successful years in, two successful years out, the latter of which can only come with a renewed Democratic majority in the House.

In a way that renders the 2014 midterms more suspenseful than Obama's "technical" reelection, which pretty much everyone except Dick Morris in particular and Fox News in general knew was inevitable, especially once the primary likes of a Herman Cain began outpolling the GOP's inevitable nominee. That was Doom writ large, and if Mitt Romney had been paying attention, he would have joined Mitch Daniels and Jeb Bush and Haley Barbour and Chris Christie in not bothering, since 2012's electoral map was as problematic as their base. 

A Democratic strategist sets the stage in describing the next action:

Clearly, the president is winning the debate on the sequester, but the sequester is Act 7 of what’s going to be a 12-act play. I think the most significant impact the president has on the midterms will be his job approval rating and favorability.

And that, with a little help from the Post, heightens the suspense:

Obama’s rating is 51 percent--nine points lower than FDR’s in the year when Democrats lost 71 House seats in his second term.

Given the electorate's partisan entrenchment it's hard to imagine Obama's overall approval exceeding the low 50s, but just as dicey is the strategist's assessment that presidential ratings possess such long and locally effective coattails. Empirical data have their doubts. And then of course there's "the-fix-is-in" complication--gerrymandering--on top of the congressional incumbency predicament. Ouch, ouch, and ouch.

Nonetheless there's hope. Obama has always been lucky in his enemies, and, politically speaking, rarely has any president been so lucky as in this epically gaffe-prone, manifestly treacherous, intensely unlikeable bunch still confoundingly called the Grand Old Party.

Comments

[AnneJ]

Lately I've been getting the feeling that republicans no longer care about winning elections anymore. Right now they have been successful at saying no, holding up nominations, and binding up any hope of economic recovery with having the majority in only in the house. In the senatate they are at an even smaller minority than they were a few years ago, yet they have filibustered legislation and just because they could. They have no principled opposition to anything the president wants to accomplish. They're all about power for power's sake and as unpopular as they are, they still love to tie everything down, again just because they can. They don't have to worry about winning elections so long as they can be a tyrannical minority.

[Peter G]

Much will hinge on the much anticipated Republican civil war, timing and severity and whether or not bountiful harvests of nutty Republican candidates results. That and the judicious use of the infrastructure created for Obama's presidential campaigns may make for the most interesting midterm elections in a long time. As location is to real estate, turnout is to elections.

[Robert Lipscomb]

PM's uses a good methodology for assessing Obama's prospects for 2014 - that is comparing previous two-term presidencies. Comparison with FDR is especially apt given both were driven by the effects of depression.

There is one major variable affecting the comparabiloity of the comparisons. Because it is new, predictions of its impact are simply guesswork.

Organizing For America is something totally new in American presidential politics. The 2012 election proved that the mechanics of that campaign were something new and quite effective. The internal mechanics of that campaign have been exported to OFA. This is most certainly something new. We can also be pretty confident in its ability to measure opinion and formulate a response, including some kind of ground game. I am much less certain in predicting its effectiveness on politics as governance.

I look forward to watching it play out and am fairly disinterested in the blovations of the DC comentariat about the sequester. I am also confused as to why none of the commentariat evver mentions OFA.

(Well, I am not really confused about that. :-) )

[JayJay]

I think the only thing that might be work is if Obama gets out there and campaigns like he is running himself. And the fundraising has to be about as intense as in 2012. That's all. I'm ready to give all I can.

[priscianus jr]

To AnneJ and Peter G:
Some of 'em don't care and some of 'em do care. And that's what's going to fuel the "civil war".