President Obama Announces 2012 Re-Election Bid

Not really a surprise, but I doubt he'll have the same win that he did back in 2008. The odds are too far stacked against him. It depends on whose running against him. If it's Sarah "I can see Russia from my house" Palin then he might just win.

No surprise here. History is on the side of an incumbent president, who seeks another term, getting re-elected: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, McKinley, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, Coolidge, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, G. W. Bush all won (18). J. Adams, J. Q. Adams, Van Buren, Cleveland, B. Harrison, Taft, Hoover, Ford, Carter, and G. H. W. Bush did not (10). Cleveland, defeated by B. Harrison, came back and defeated Harrison in the next election to win another term, so that may be worth half of another re-election.

You can't tell me anybody honestly thought he was gonna step down.....

Obama might as well dig up Dick Cheney's old ass, and make him his VP, because I see little difference b/w Bush and Obama. Anyway, considering the dateless wonders the Republicans are fielding, Obama should have a fairly easy time winning re-election.

Significant, but about as surprising as rain falling in Vancouver in April, or the sun coming up in the east this morning. The big question is what will Obama do when the dread Harold Heard campaign gets rolling.

No major surprise here. Barack Obama is running for re-election. He has spent the past several months setting up his campaign headquarters in Chicago, along with deploying people over there. I'd imagine that their core strategy will be to remake the political dynamics that ushered him into the Presidency in 2008. Does lightning strike twice? Maybe, maybe not. 2008 itself was an extraordinary political event, and given the difficulties that Republicans were having at the time, with the War in Iraq and the financial crisis being major millstones on their necks, it was easy to see that a Democrat would be elected then. The media was all for him, he came across as a young, dynamic African-American candidate. After 8 years of Bush, the public had made up its mind. But the political picture has changed somewhat since then. I think that there's a better than even chance that Obama will indeed be re-elected, although not by as large of a margin as he was in 2008. George H.W. Bus... Read more

The surprise factor is almost zero. Question to the RIA historians, besides Johnson, has anyone ever declined to run for a second-term since the inception of the term limit? Does Truman count given that he got the job only a few months after becoming VP and did almost all of a 4 year term? Interesting that both of those guys elected not to run after replacing a guy who died 'in the saddle'.