Barack O'Bama and Jimmy Carter

One point of comparison between the 44th President of the United States and the 39th occurred to me last night (or I should say re-occurred to me since I may have made this point before).

In Carter's re-election campaign of 1980 he faced a primary challenger from within his own party. Ted Kennedy viewed 1980 as perhaps his last shot at the Presidency and this viewpoint of privilege coupled with Carter's weakness as President made Teddy take a shot at the title. Wikipedia characterizes the 1980 Democratic National Convention as one of the "nastiest in history". Carter went into the general election greatly weakened by Kennedy's challenge. Ronald Reagan was then swept into office in large part with the mandate to fix the mistakes of the Carter Administration.

Likewise, Barack Obama's popularity is plummeting and it would not be too much of a stretch to see Hillary Clinton view 2012 as her last shot at the Presidency. Her viewpoint may be that she was short-changed by Obama and his 2008 promise everything campaign which allowed him to sweep into office. A bare knuckles primary challenge could cripple an Obama re-election bid allowing a Republican to retake the Oval Office in 2012 much like what happened in 1980.

I wish there was someplace to place a futures bet on the Republican field beating President Obama in 2012. I'd bet the max allowed.