My Cold Shower Is Looking Spot On.

With Mitt Romney moving into a slight lead in the polls in Wisconsin (!), it might be a good time to revisit my analysis of the not-to-distant conventional wisdom that Obama was a lock for re-election.

I'm Here to Cold Shower the CW on 2012

We are going to start seeing a ton of this kind of article, about how Obama is going to win in 2012 (here is another). I think these are reasonable analyses and I don't dispute the power of incumbency; I surely don't dispute that the slobbering love affair of the MSM/EJM with Dear Leader is going to kick into overdrive; and I don't dispute the idea that Republicans can screw up their chances. And of course, we never know what things will look like two years down the road. However, let me posit a few items that I've mentioned before but that are worth revisiting and combining.

- Obama will run with unemployment at/near 10% and gas over $4. While not a lock, these are highly probable. The economy is recovering but not fast enough to add the number of jobs needed to help Obama politically. Jobs creators are justifiably cautious and the only shift has been in Obama's rhetoric; the nasty, job-killing stuff he has foisted on the economy is still fully operational down in the inner workings of the economy. Even if unemployment moderates a bit, it is a virtual certainty that it will be higher than when he took office. Not good. Gas will be over $4 and food prices will be higher and rising (either explicitly so or stealthily so). These are core pocketbook problems that Americans have historically taken out on incumbent Presidents.

- Many Americans are still spitting mad at the MSM/EJM for their despicable performance in the 2008 campaign, a performance which continues today, and the thicker they lay it on, the more they slobber over Obama, the more grossed out it will make regular Americans and the more it will galvanize an anti-Obama coalition. The media will conduct Act II of its slobbering love affair from a vastly diminshed position in American society, with vastly reduced influence, this time around.

- The stakes are so high. If we re-elect Obama, we live with ObamaCare forever and we get more "wise Latina" entho-racial progressive victimology crap placed onto the High Court. Americans like continuity, but they have their limits.

- The world will look a mess, further revealing what a non-entity at best, a provocateur through his weakness at worst, Obama is on the world stage.

- His coalition is gone. And, Dear Leader may excite his base, but you can bet your keister that the other side's base will be damned excited too.

- ObamaCare will continue to backfire. Premiums will rise, doctors will refuse Medicare, drug prices will go up, among many other adverse developments. And we may even see the SCOTUS declare major portions of it unconstitutional. Under that scenario are we really going to re-elect the guy whose signature achievement proves to be a legally out-of-bounds, economic flop?

This is from January of 2011 mind you.  Much of this is now showing up in the polling and is the emerging conventional wisdom of the punditry.  But I heed the Good Professor's warning...don't get cocky kid.