Barack Obama has announced he is running for re election as president in the November 2012 election. One interesting aspect of the announcement is that it was initially made simultaneously via E mail and at BarackObama.com to his supporters, not through means of the traditional press conference. In this age of media campaigning, Obama is a master of using the newer forms of media. It's a prime reason why he was able to raise so much money and win in 2008. It surely is beyond dispute that the electronic communications are what enabled Obama to win the Presidency in 2008. He is truly the first "Connected President".
Why does a sitting President need to announce he is running again more than 1 1/2 years before the election? It's money. By filing papers with the Federal Election Commission, Obama can begin to fund raise for his re-election campaign according to federal laws about campaign contributions. I have no doubt he will raise plenty of money to run again. But with an approval rating at only 46% among voters and a disapproval rating at exactly the same 46%, Obama has proven to be not the unifier, but the polarizing President....well....but not as much as was George Bush. But Obama has quite a few enemies now that he did not have in the first election, particular among independent voters like me who voted for him then but who are now baffled by his lack of vision, his lies and deceptions and his almost total inability to deliver on any of his last campaign promises.
Other than delivering on the gutted version of a health care bill that the majority of Americans say they did not want anyway, Obama's "Hope and Change" 2008 promise has turned into the "Changeless Lethargic Presidency". When a sitting President campaigns for re election he usually refers back to promises made and promises delivered. But Obama has few of those delivered promises to cite. A cynic would say that he might as well use all his campaigning material from 2008 since he hasn't fulfilled the promises made then.
So how does he campaign in 2012, given his failure to achieve so much of what he promised in 2008? I doubt he would brag about running up the largest deficit spending in the history of the world in just the first two years of office. The American economy is so broken it may be beyond repair, and Obama as President has shown no attempt to practice the leadership needed to tell voters what they must be sacrifice in order to fix it. Too, he can't run on the promise to end the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan, given they are still active and Obama has even instigated another new war with Libya. The economy is still awful and the President whose job it is to lead in times of crisis, acts as if he is in denial about even the existence of any economic problems. "Hope and Change" has lead to "Hopelessness" for many here in the U.S.
Well, Obama could sit and wait...hope that the economy improves before the election comes along. Voters most often re elect the president when the economy seems improved. He also could campaign on abstract issues such as his like ability quotient or the fact that most voters feel he is far more trustworthy than most recent presidents. Too, his Republican opponents are equally inept and so far offer no candidate any better than the impotent Obama himself. Obama might campaign on the "At least I am not as bad as they would be" mantra.
Well, it seems with the announcement, that Obama may just buy his way into a second term. Evidently the Democrats will raise enough money to propagandize enough voters to believe whatever message it is Obama will give and make them forget the ignored promises of the 2008 campaign. After all, in American presidential elections the candidate who spends the most money trying to be elected usually wins most of the time. Right now, Obama is way ahead in that regard.
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