there will be no significant emergent party candidates, and that might be correct. But there is a distinct chance that Bloomberg will enter as an Independent, Ron Paul as a libertarian, in which case if the Greens recruit a name candidate the entire race could be thrown open. In a five way race the number of votes you would need to win would be drastically reduced.

He's boxed in as a D, though, right? I suppose he could challenge Bloomberg...

Kent Mesplay, while a nice,principled fellow, has NO national exposure, and he has never held any elected public office! What is up with the National Greens? They are making me crazy.

mired in the lose/lose political football antics we have in this country now.. i admit to wondering about the Coakley effect (no shows) and specifically about the youth who were so enthusiastic last time around... whether they will show up, much less raise spirits during the campaign. I would expect the campaign to do it's best to make things look that way. It's a matter of whether the youth feel betrayed by O.... if so, he and D's at large may have lost many of them for a generation. (which, imo, would be a good thing).

My husband expects that the economy will not improve during the election.

I'm a bit surprised the professor didn't pick up on that one. What in the world makes him think things will improve at all markedly in the next year or so? Europe's a mess, China's been intransigent about devaluing their currency, or just about anything else regarding economics, and much of the rest of the world seems to be in the doldrums. Back here in the U.S. of A., we're about to see how things would be without the stimulus bill.

It's also interesting that your husband doesn't think Obama has made any significant change to policy. I agree with him, but so many Obama supporters still seem to think that everything he's done has been historic (OK, I exaggerate a little, but only a little). My own opinion is that he made history when he walked through the door of the White House for the first time, and that any history he's made since has been for the worse.

One of the wisest people I know told me the other day he believes a Donald Trump presidential run with Ron Paul as VP (or vice versa) would be "viable" at this point, given President Obama's cataclysmically low approval rating, ongoing economic unease, and a public that knows very little about the Fed, monetary policy, etc -- all they know is they are angry and want something changed. http://www.businessinsider.com/how-a-ron-paul--donald-trump-presidential-ticket-could-win-2011-8

I could imagine a third-party candidate sweeping to popularity for a while, but the cycle seems to be for the bloom to come off the rose very fast.
People would support Trump-Paul, for example, as long as it meant &*^% You Obama and Perry/Romney. But when the time came for it to mean four years of President Trump, I think that would be very different.
However, a third-party candidate actually ready to fight for us would have the reverse trajectory. Harder to get off the ground and would be subject to all sorts of attacks and delegitimation from the mainstream media from the start, but wouldn't wear on people as badly.
People are angry and know that something is wrong, but how many are really willing to see how deep the rot goes and are willing to see how deep the change must go? I really don't know about that. And I don't think the biases of the MSM explain this. When people are ready to see they will, MSM or no MSM.

The Obama strategy for the White House remains to get tons of money from Wall Street and bank on the public being more scared of whatever crazy Republican gets nominated than they are disgusted by Obama and his betrayals.

The sleeper event in this election is not a viable third party candidate but rather what ES says that large chunks of the electorate will stay home.

I told my brother-in-law a few weeks ago that if I won the lottery I wcould run for President and might even win. The idea wasn't about me per se. I am sure someone like me would be cut to pieces by the media. It's rather that

1) there is popular populist discontent with the two parties and the PTB (approval for where the country is is hovering near single digits)

2) the two parties are guaranteed to give us crap candidates, crap policies, and lies no matter what

3) We progressives have solutions that will work. There is the 12 word platform that lambert has conveniently placed just under the pay buttons. To these I would add, investigate Wall Street, rule of law, and fair trade now. I think too that it is a powerful message that everyone can understand and agree with that we as a nation and a people have the resources for good jobs, good education, good healthcare, good housing, and good retirements for all our citizens. People want to feel good about themselves again. They want to feel they and our country have a future. The great tragedy of our times is that we know what to do but no one will step up and do it.

I'm skeptical of the overall "key theory" - I don't think our process can be boiled down to anything this simplistic, and I think what commenters are noting, on a meta-level, is that there are plenty of variables not dreamed of in the Professor's somewhat narrow theorizing.

All of that said, I think the idea of Republicans nominating someone "charismatic or a national hero" is pretty much out of the question, so there we are; there are plenty of scenarios in which Obama can more or less steamroll his way (again) to this election, while not necessarily being well liked, popular even with members of his own party, or leading a successful economy. As long as Republicans offer no real alternative, and the best others can do is dream of third party pipe dreams (the two most successful third party runs remain John Anderson and Ross Perot. First, tell me of any third partier who comes close to their stature. Then, tell me how they can possibly do better), then this remains Obama's election to lose... and so far, I don't see a lot of scenarios in which he's doomed.

(PS, anyone who seriously throws around Donald Trump's name ought to be dismissed out of hand; second, it's not even clear New York City, never mind New York State, would want a Michael Bloomberg presidency, and I'm pretty sure a lot of others wouldn't either. I like Bloomy well enough, but I'm hard pressed to see how the kind of angry lefty economic types around here would find an oligarchic plutocratic CEO with a messiah complex to be an improvement.)