Effect of Obama Got Osama on the 2012 Election

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They are reporting on CNN that this will help Obama's re-election hopes in 2012. I'm even seeing some people on right wing sites, saying that because of this Obama will be re-elected. What do you the impact will be on the 2012 election?

The country as whole seems to be raising the patriotic flag. Likely this will be mentioned over and over in the upcoming campaign. I can't help but to think it will have a significant impact, but I wouldn't say it assures him re-election. I expect his approval ratings will rise significantly for awhile.

I don't think there is anything of substance that any news sources that want to be seen as reputable can say against this as a victory for the the troops, the US, and the Obama Administration.

Some of the outlier news sources are already coming up with conspiracy theories, like Obama has been on ice for years, but I doubt it will be given too much consideration.

Just a side note for those that create polls. I have a bad habit of hitting submit before updating the last poll option to make the last intended poll option to appear in the poll. If you ever hit submit and realize it right after you hit submit you can return to the previous web page, before you click on return to forum or view message, to correct the mistake. After that you can delete the duplicate poll. A very limited way to correct the mistake, but it is the only thing I have found so far, that works.

This is somewhat tangential to the thread, but in Canada there's going to be an election on May 2. It'll be interesting to see how this effects it, as the the Conservatives are a pro-continuing the Afghan War party whereas the NDP (traditionally a leftwing third party) has a shot at becoming the Official Opposition and has been a steadfast "withdraw from Afghanistan" party.

I think it will have mostly blown over by the election.

What will be important is whether or not Obama still thinks he needs to maintain his surge in Afghanistan after this. Pulling out of Afghanistan would go far to patch up his relations with his Democratic base.

No significant effect. Still about a year and a half out and history hath shewn the economy will still take priority with the vast majority of voters. There may be a temporary bump but we'll return to business as usual in a month or two.. I'm hopeful that people will start demanding an end to the War On Terror now that Osama has been killed.

As anyone seen any reputable news sources, trying to downplay the significance of the elimination of Bin laden, seemingly, for political purposes?

I've seen a non-reputable source do it, so far, but no reputable ones.

I've been reading some of the negative opinions on the event, and they are point toward retaliation and a ramp up of military action. I don't see retaliation as significantly greater from this action, and don't expect the administation to use it as a political tool for scare tactics to ramp up the military action on the War on Terror.

However, I don't think they will move too quickly to withdraw from Afghanistan, but hopefully, it will be a positive point to bow out of that conflict soon. I think that would be seen as a more significant impact to affect the re-election of Obama, above and beyond the elimination of Bin-Laden.

It will definitely make the politics of re-election interesting for awhile. Maybe it will finish off the birther conspiracy; or at least dim the light on it.

I'm not seeing that. I don't really see how it can be played as a partisan issue even tho it inevitably will be.

Honestly tho, there's nothing wrong with questioning the significance of his death. I think it's important symbolically but that's about it. I don't think it changes anything on the ground, he's been pretty much cut off for a decade.

It certainly has shifted the news cycle from "Trump got Obama to release his Long Form Birth Certificate" to "Osama killed under Operation Approved by Obama".

To the extent that it was an assassination rather than truly a military action, especially in conjunction with the apparent targeted killing of Qadafi's son and grandchildren, it may have some long term consequences with espect to how war is conducted. We may start to see more assassination attempts; for example, Obama's kids might be at greater risk.

Some effect but there are always larger issues. GHW Bush had a 90% approval post Gulf War 1 yet he lost the next year. Though he did have a 3-way race dragging him down.

But it's obviously good news and will help him.

Yea, the retaliation stuff is just fear mongering. I don't buy it for a second. We have to justify to ourselves why we're fighting this war with weird circular logic. If we kill their leader, they'll retaliate, so we have to kill more of them!

I agree that if Obama started scaling down the War On Terror it would be be a positive for his reelection but unfortunately I don't see that happening. Seems more like the opposite, this success somehow justifies our occupation apparently.

I agree. I've been hearing khadaffi next, opinion, but I guess it could happen too. War is too expensive, and more than we can afford when other options are available.

I think that it will blow over by then. It was Bush's project to start with. Obama couldn't oversee the development of a military operation if he needed it to save his ego, his Afghanistan policy has lacked direction his whole presidency, and it's unlikely he magically got a clue last week....unless he just got some top secret matrix computer that programs stuff directly into his brain, though even then they would still have to upload a lot of remedial programs first.

As a political move, it is poorly timed.

Might serve as a distraction, but any "bump" for Obama's approval ratings will long be gone before we're even in 2012.

If he tried to save the assassination of Bin Laden until it could be used for political capital, and if it was discovered, it would ruin him.