Bad Primaries For Obama A Bad Omen For Autumn...

This should make the beer and barbecue go down all that much smoother this weekend.  James Taranto, yesterday:

"There are only seven sitting presidents who have ever received less than 60 percent of the vote in any primary: Taft in '12; Coolidge, '24; Hoover, '32; LBJ, '68; Ford '76; Carter, '80; and Bush '92. All of these presidents, with the exception of Coolidge, were not re-elected."

Actually, there's an eighth sitting president who received less than 60% in a primary--in more than one, in fact. That would be Obama in '12, who, as Trende points out, received just 58.4% in Arkansas, 57.9% in Kentucky, 57.1% in Oklahoma and 59.4% in West Virginia. In Kentucky, his main opponent was "Uncommitted," another name for Nobody.

Nobody is challenging Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries this year--and is doing surprisingly well...

If the trend is predictive--admittedly, a big if--Obama is much likelier than not to lose in November.


Cheers.

 And cue the face-palm: