James Joyner thinks I might dump Obama in 2012:
Andrew came here from England in 1984 after winning a Harkness Fellowship to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has not supported the same man twice.
Reagan was ineligible to run again in 1988, so voting for his vice president, George H.W. Bush, is as close as he could have come. But he didn’t vote to re-elect Bush, going with Bill Clinton instead. But he didn’t vote to re-elect Clinton, going with Dole. He supported George W. Bush in 2000 but voted against him in 2004. He voted for Obama in 2008.
The pattern could change, of course. He’s genuinely disgusted with the Republican Party at this point. But, if they nominate a palatable candidate, there’s a strong, strong likelihood that Andrew will endorse him rather than going with Obama a second time.
'Tis possible, I 'spose. No party or clique and all that.
But it's hard to see a Republican out there who isn't beholden to fundamentalism of such misguided certainty that it would be tough. But you never know. The fickleness of my endorsements, however, should surely be judged on the merits of each call. My backing for Dole was entirely on character grounds: I readily admitted that I was fine with Clinton's substantive policies and preferred them to Dole's, but felt that Clinton's lying was so pathological that we couldn't risk another term. My only real regret is Bush in 2000. I trusted Bush's incompetence over Gore's insufferable ego. But I suspect that with the invasion of Iraq, the end-result would have been the same. They both would have gone in on false pretenses. And would have failed for similar reasons.