[Guest post] Counting the Negatives

In the comments, @TheBigHenry told me that this upcoming presidential election was all about the negatives. Romney may be log(1), but Mitt's candidacy should still evaluate greater than the "cons" surrounding Obama's.

This started me wondering: how does Obama stack up against some recent presidents in terms of negatives?

Seems to me that Obama is slightly better than average, equaling Reagan and Ford with only two negatives. And before any of you start pounding me in the comments, I admit there are some gray areas here. First of all, I'm sure many of the Reaganistas will argue that their idol being shot was a positive. I don't really think being lynched, nailed to a cross, or bullet ridden is a plus, but I'm willing to grant it so long as you don't try to convince me that Iran-Contra wasn't a scandal. Anyway, if I reluctantly grant being shot isn't a bad thing, then Reagan ties HW Bush as our best president in my personal memory. Wy should be happy about that. Kennedy and W Bush are the worst. And our current President remains in the "doesn't-quite-suck-as-bad" category.

How Romney will fare, should he be elected, is hard to say. I think he's clean and sober. He might keep his junk locked away. I don't think he's particularly ugly, but there might be some sort of scandal lurking in his future, probably financial if I had to guess. He is pitching pretty hard that he'll cure the economy, but we've heard that lie before. My opinion is that endless war, the 2008 financial meltdown, Medicare Part B, and the impossibility of raising revenue will remain a weight on the budget for more than just four more years, regardless of who wins in November. I guess I'd predict two negatives for Romney, tying him with Obama.

PS: While technically (according to the life-begins-a-month-before-conception people) I was alive when Eisenhower was in office, I don't remember him. Thus I did not include him above.

Posted at 18:46 by Nadz   [/guest/nadz]   Comments | Perm Link |
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