Article by Sevak Vartanian of Shock and Awe
Brendan Nyhan, a leading political scientist from Michigan University predicts that President Obama might face his first scandal soon. This was determined based on mathematical calculations made by him, and was published as a report on his “Center for Politics” website. And there’s more: as the political scientist goes as far as to say that the President will face his first scandal in June 2012, just before the next Presidential elections.
In comparing data of presidential scandals between 1977 and 2008, he also thinks that Obama is very fortunate in being one of the few presidents who have avoided a scandal for as long as he has been in his first term as President.
The longest duration for which a president has gone without a scandal being featured on the front page of the Washington Post during the aforementioned time period was 34 months right from the time President Bush took office in January 2001 until the Valeria Plame scandal which occurred in October 2003.
In addition, he also points out that Obama will also face a scandal in similar fashion to Presidents such as Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, and it is the lack of support that Obama from the Republicans during his Presidency that might fuel opposition legislators and members of the media to make allegations of misconduct against President Obama.
Alternatively, the chances of other news such as unrest in the Middle East among others can have a dampening effect on the news of the first Obama scandal thus concluding that the chances of a scandal depends ultimately on the direction of media coverage at that time.