this seems like a dumb statement

I’m referring to the first half of the statement:

“(CNN) — Republicans this year have the best chance of defeating a sitting Democratic president since Ronald Reagan toppled Jimmy Carter more than three decades ago, but Democratic heavyweights are quietly celebrating the fact that, given Tuesday night’s caucus results, that task has just become harder.”

First of all, the use of the superlative “best chance” is stupid, because there has only been one other sitting Democratic President running for re-election since Jimmy Carter: Bill Clinton in 1996.

So, it would be sort of like saying: “Italy feels like 2014 will be their best chance to win a World Cup since 2006.” Big deal. They won it in 2006 and didn’t win it on their only chance afterward in 2010.

Or: “Tonight seems like my best chance to have a good dinner since January 3.” I had a good dinner on the 3rd and a weak dinner last night. But so what? That hardly makes tonight a special superlative occasion worth noting.

Second, I’m tired of people retroactively believing that Bill Clinton was an unstoppable political juggernaut in 1996. Clinton after the 1994 elections was considered a political dead man. The 1994 elections were catastrophic for Democrats. Even Mario Cuomo, one of the biggest national stars in the Party, couldn’t win re-election in New York. The 1994 elections were a gut-punch.

After that, everyone was saying Clinton had no chance at all in 1996. I was the only person in any of my circles of friends saying that he would win– for the same simple reason that applies in 2012: you have to beat the incumbent with someone. Who in 1996 was capable of going on the stage and looking better than Clinton, at the end of the day? No one. And the same applies now. Either the Republicans will stupidly nominate some crazed wingnut or, more likely, they will nominate the robotic and (in my opinion) personally unlikable Mitt Romney. Obama will win, barring some bizarre wrench in the political works between now and November.

Granted, Bill Clinton received a major assist in early 1996 from the politically suicidal Newt Gingrich (“This may sound petty, but I shut down the government because Clinton made me sit in the back of the plane on the way back from Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral”- probably the stupidest political gaffe of all time, since Gingrich torpedoed both his Party and his own rising political dominance with a single sentence.)

Anyway, the analogy between Obama and Carter just isn’t there. Carter may be remembered fondly abroad, but domestically he always felt very weak. And even Carter seemed to have a chance until the TV debate with Reagan.

[ADDENDUM: Sorry, I initially added 10 years to a lot of those Clinton dates. Freudian slip, or just tired?]