But the information that prompted Bachmann's denunciation of the issue has been widely available for many years . . . Better late than never, I guess.

Soft bigotry of low expectations and all that, but it is still a good sign. I couldn't tell if she really had never heard that a certificate of live birth had been released or if, when confronted, couldn't figure out a way to dispute its authenticity without sounding crazy and just backed down, or if she had made a prior decision to renounce the birther issue if pressed. I tend to think that political calculation played some role.

Pete - you are absolutely right. Trump will be an unknown in a few months. But, you have got to admit, he is unnerving Obama and causing mental breakdowns for the liberals. It is fun. Enjoy the ride.

If I was a serious Republican contender, I would not even put my hat into the ring until end of the year. Obama is failing miserably, he is getting testy and snotty, and the economy is not getting better. Inflation is killing us - especially at the gas pumps and at the grocery store. The "POOR" people (my question is always "why are you poor?") are seeing the majority of their income go to housing, food and gas. Obama will lose them too if he doesn't get his head out of his butt and do something that will work to improve the economy. Unfortunately, there is no out for him. In order for the economy to start growing, we have to be adding at least 250,000 jobs per month - Ain't happening.

Let the spotlight shine on Obama and Trump for that matter as long as you can. Then come out hitting hard with good conservative ideas (like Paul Ryan and Rand Paul) and Obama will lose - just think - Jimmy Carter.

cowgirl, I don't see any reason to believe that Trump has unnerved Obama or that discussions of the circumstances of Obama's birth or the authorship of Obama's first book do center-right politics any good. At best, I hope it just doesn't matter in the end... though even then, there are opportunity costs to these kinds of things.

I disagree. Obama has become snotty and testy over the past few weeks. Trump may not be the whole reason, but part of it. Obama has made some comments about Trump. Obama is thinned-skinned and it doesn't take much to needle him. Trump is just not talking about the birth certificate and the book, he is talking about a lot of things. No doubt Trump is having an affect on both the issues and Obama.

I always thought that Obama's coolness and smoothness during the 2008 election was a front. Trump is helping to remove the Obama mask and reveal Obama's real character.

cowgirl, so you think that Obama misremembered (in a positive direction of course) how he did in Texas and launched a harsh attack on Ryan's PTP because Trump's comments about Obama's book and birth put the fear of...something into him.?

Trumps comments are having an affect, but the most obvious one is increased media coverage of Trump.

This election and the last one are notable for the vulnerability of campaigns to unpredictable shocks.

1. Trump (and Bloomberg) are potential problems for the Republicans inasmuch as each could self-finance a vigorous 3d party campaign. Ordinarily, such campaigns cause more hemorhaging from the incumbent than the challenger, but a campaign by one of these might be the odd one which injures the challenger more.

2. A crisis in the bond market or a financial panic derivative of sovereign defaults in Europe is another non-negligible possibility, and one which will with little doubt be billed to the incumbents.

These sorts of factors make speculation about electoral outcomes even more idle than is usually the case.

I doubt that Trump will self-finance a 3rd party general election campaign. I don't think he will spend tens of millions of dollars (or more) in order to not get elected President. If I'm wrong I'll apologize (in the comments seciton of course.) His big talk aside, I'm not sure that when you get a good look at his books, tens of millions of dollars is serious money for Trump in a way that it isn't for Bloomberg.

I would not wager he would, either. I merely note the probability of this happening is non-negligible. In an ordinary election, you do not see this sort of thing. Anomalies generally threaten the incumbent party, as they did in 2008. This is one that does not.

Over the last 6 decades, Presidents in office have generally had (one can see retrospectively) one of three experiences of the dynamics of public approval:

1. Little temporal trend, and generally bouyant.

2. Continuous loss of support (with some interstitial flux, of course).

3. Alternating periods of advance and retreat in public approval.

We get to find out between now and the fall whether BO has the second or the third experience. The second is not what you want. Truman and Bush-fils managed to be returned to office in spite of that, but neither had at analagous points in time experienced the loss of esteem that BO has suffered to date.

"so you think that Obama misremembered (in a positive direction of course) how he did in Texas and launched a harsh attack on Ryan's PTP because Trump's comments about Obama's book and birth put the fear of...something into him.? "

No, I believe Obama said what he said about Texas and Paul Ryan's PTP because Obama is incompetent and ignorant (he has no clue about economics - he only knows the redistrubtion of wealth) I am just saying that Trump is not helping Obama - Obama is thinned-skinned and it is starting to show more and more each day. Trump is adding to the fire. The White House has been stupid enough to respond to Trumps' birther claims. That makes the White House look fearful. Why comment on it at all. Trump has nothing to lose by running the game he playing right now. Obama does. Obama needs to be careful - he is dishonest and has no character.

The media and Trump do have one thing in common - themselves.

Anonymous, all the evidence I see is that Obama is rather too competent along the dimensions of winning elections and enacting policies I find harmful. And when it comes to having "no character" his record as a husband compares favorably to that of several potential Republican presidential candidates.

Aside from the attention he is getting for himself, the only thing Trump is "adding" is perhaps entertainment value for some people who like to pretend to believe things that would further justify and magnify their hatred of Obama. You are right that Trump has nothing to lose. He isn't really running for President (in the sense of really trying to get elected.) He isn't even really trying to prevent Obama's reelection (really, who is out there saying "well I was gonna vote for Obama, but then Trumps said that Obama's book was written by a terrorist and so..."). Obama would no doubt love to have an ever larger fraction of criticisms directed at him be of the birther/Ayers ghostwriter variety.

I'm not really sweating the Trump thing (though I do find some elements interesting. One of them is how a certain fraction of the population believes expressions that gratify their malice must therefore help to advance their electoral and policy preferences.

I very much doubt it this thing will be decisive in 2012 - though at the very best it does crowd out some other more useful messages. We would have been some little tiny bit better off if the last few weeks had been more about IPAB and less about Trump/birther/Ayers ghostwriting. But on the other had it is the silly season and maybe something similarly useless was inevitable.

And when it comes to having "no character" his record as a husband compares favorably to that of several potential Republican presidential candidate

Contrived.

There are fifteen people listed here as not having ruled out running:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2012-republican-presidential-candidates-abc-news-guidebook/story?id=12164311&page=1

to which one might add Gary Johnson and Jon Huntsman. A grand total of three of 17 have been married more than once: 'Newt' Gingrich, 'Buddy' Roemer, and the Donald himself. (The probability of BO ever facing Gingrich or Roemer on a ballot is negligible, btw).

all the evidence I see is that Obama is rather too competent along the dimensions of winning elections and enacting policies I find harmful.

You need to adjust your handicapping.

The health care law and the banking legislation were each a wretched hodgepodge composed by Pelosi, Frank, et al. The Democratic Party held 60% of the seats in Congress at the time.

Re his electoral performance: there has for more than sixty years been a considerable head wind facing a political party seeking a 3d turn at the presidential wheel, even when you do not have a running sore of a war in the Near East. It did not help that eight commercial corporations with $10 tn in assets and between them constituting a quarter of the domestic financial sector were revealed to be insolvent over a period of two months or so during which you were campaigning.

Obama's electoral history since 2003 has been mostly a history of bizarre co-incidences and the power of marketing. Sad for us.

I had forgotten about Roemer. So yes, several.