"You came in here, didn't you have a plan for getting out?"

RCP’s Alexis Simendinger has a nice writeup on the President’s probable reelection strategy. You should read the whole thing, but this bit caught my eye:

“Elections are always a choice between options,” said George C. Edwards, Texas A&M University political science professor and editor of Presidential Studies Quarterly. “Obama has one and possibly two assets for re-election. The first is a [Democratic] base that will hate the Republican nominee, whoever he or she may be, and the second possible advantage is [that] the nominee may … scare off the middle of the electorate.”

There’s a third item, and that’s the power of incumbency. It’s just damn tough to unseat a President.

That omission aside, Edwards reveals that Obama’s other two hopes are that his base stays energized and the other side does something stupid. The problem with that is, it’s never a solid plan which depends upon the stupidity of your opponent — not even when your opponent is from the Stupid Party.