Haley Barbour will not run for president. Rep. Ron Paul will. This time, Ron Paul won’t sound like an isolated iconoclastic loon. In fact, he may discover that he’s almost a mainstream Republican. This is going to open a massive hole in the political middle of the country that Obama should be able to waltz through with little problem. To maximize the margin of victory, Obama will have to hold as many of the alienated Republicans as possible. A Lyndon Johnson-size victory is definitely a real possibility. I think Paul Ryan’s budget plan combined with the radicalism of the Republican candidates makes a landslide a better than even bet. There are two things that are frustrating, however. To maximize the size of the victory, Obama needs to hold the center, which means he isn’t going to tack to the left. Worse, even if he wins in a landslide, he’ll still spend his second-term basically check-mated by Senate Republicans. There’s not much hope in that.

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