A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON ELECTION DAY

Maybe we'll hold an election next year and no one will show up to vote. Just kidding, of course, since I haven't missed a presidential vote yet. But what is troubling is how candidates and possible candidates are losing public support either from self-inflicted wounds or from events over which they have no control.

Starting with declared candidate and incumbent President Obama, rising prices at the gasoline pump, the upheaval in the Arab world, and the war in Afghanistan are taking their toll on the President. In the case of gas prices, the public has some expectation that there is something the President can do to halt the increases. In fact, there is little he can do except assume an anti-Wall Street posture through an investigation of what hedge fund managers and market manipulators may be doing to artificially jack up the prices.

The increase in gas prices does take a toll on the already sluggish economic recovery by diverting more of a household's discretionary spending to buying gasoline and away from eating out and buying a variety of consumer goods. Meanwhile, many of these same households continue to experience a continued decline in value of one of their major assets -- housing. The other major asset, 401(k) retirement investments, has recovered its value as the stock market continues its extended rise. But the bottom line is that the combination of rising gas prices and accompanying inflation in food and clothing prices, plus the continued decline of housing assets with little likelihood of change for years, has added to the gloom of the public. And when that happens the person who gets the blame is the President, Democrat or Republican.

Going abroad, the headlines and evening news are dominated by the political meltdown in the Arab world with the overthrow or demands for overthrow of presidents or kings in a number of Arab countries. These politically destabilizing events leave the impression of an indecisive U.S. foreign policy. In fact events in the Arab world have gone beyond the U.S. ability to influence them; as said in the previous posting, we are very concerned "spectators". Add to this the declining public support for the decade-old war in Afghanistan, a war that continues to kill or wound our troops and drain our financial resources. All of this would seem to be a golden opportunity for the Republicans to capture the White House next year. Unfortunately for the GOP, they have a bundle of problems of their own.

First is the fact that there seems to be little enthusiasm among Republican voters for any of the choices. Thus, in polls of GOP voters we find there are shifting ties on who is the most preferred and the ties are in the 20 percent range, meaning no one enjoys a lot of support. But beyond the weak pool of wannabe's there are several self-inflicted wounds that are now working against the GOP.

One flows from the recent 2012 budget proposal passed by the GOP-controlled House, the so-called Paul Ryan budget. While the Ryan plan purports to be a road map for cutting the deficit over the next decade, the current public focus is increasingly on that part of the plan to kill medicare as it has operated for the last 45 years. Under the Ryan plan it would be replaced with a voucher system that results in a giant subsidy for the insurance industry and the increasingly clear fact that the vouchers will become increasingly inadequate to purchase an adequate insurance policy. This point is being pressed by senior and near-senior citizens so that the GOP plan for medicare is becoming the lightening rod for the entire GOP budget plan.

On top of this the point is also being driven home that the Ryan plan to short change the future elderly on health care is flanked by the GOP budget proposal to give more tax breaks to the wealthy. This is not the same as saying that the public is enamored with the Obama plan which preserves the current structure of medicare. But the points being driven home against the Ryan plan by seniors, a key demographic of support for the Republicans, is having a wider effect on the general public.

On the foreign policy front, the most outspoken Republicans are pressing for policies that seem to run counter to where the public wants to go. On the troubles in the Arab world, outspoken Republicans like Senators McCain and Graham want more U.S. military involvement in Libya and a more robust but non-military U.S. policy for Syria. The public, however, seems generally agreeable on supporting humanitarian goals in Libya but, except for right wing foreign policy hawks, there seems to be little support for still another military adventure in the Arab world or anywhere else. Similarly, the GOP was and remains supportive of Obama's troop escalation in Afghanistan and for continued military intervention in that country, a position that is increasingly unpopular with the general public and causes concern among budget hawks about what the war's cost is doing to our fiscal problems. And this assessment of GOP prospects doesn't even include the "birther" issue which could backfire on the GOP, even though it is espoused primarily by the far right wing of the party. Even conservative Arizona Governor Brewer says the birther issue is the "path to destruction" for the country.

So whoever emerges as the candidate for either party is likely to find, to modify an old analogy with a western river, his or her support is neither wide nor deep.