The audacity to hope again

If it’s the hope that kills you, let’s all get ready to die again. Four more years to satisfy his liberal critics, catch up with the great expectations, and take on the perennially disappointed. Hope wasn’t the message this time around, but it’s what many will seek for a President Obama second term.

If we’re talking electoral college votes, this was a synch. A walk in the park. With the exceptions of North Carolina, a state believed to have been lost several weeks ago, and Indiana, lost several months ago, according to Democrat insiders, President Obama took every key battleground state. Very soon Florida will be added to give Obama a 332-203 victory. An electoral college landslide. The popular vote margin of victory is considerably less than in 2008. Over 59 million, or 50% of the votes, won, represents eight million fewer. A 2% win, way down from almost 7% against John McCain.

Obama has again managed to cobble together a rainbow coalition of supporters. And once more it’s women who played the most significant role. By a lead of 12 points, women flocked to the president. Aided no doubt by the stubborn social conservatism of the present Republican Party, and some of its candidates’ jaw-dropping comments on rape. Virtually absent from the presidential debates, women’s rights, or more accurately their bodies, were attacked like never before in the primaries.

Like the Conservative Party in Britain, the Republicans have an ethnic minority problem. 9 out of 10 black Americans, and 7 out of 10 Latinos came down on the side of Obama. Non white voters now make up 21% of all voters, and rising. The Republicans have serious work to do to win them around. Adopting a more flexible, Bush-like, attitude to immigration would help.

Republican intransigence has been the order of the day. The pattern of Obama’s first term. Refusing to budge on many social issues will continue to dog them, unless they can find a softer, more conciliatory tone.

There’s no doubt that Team Obama’s groundwork had again given the president that crucial edge. Stationed in many swing states almost as soon as he first took office has been one masterstroke of many. The Democrats have been better organised, better drilled and knocking on doors even earlier, than four years ago. The Romney camp have been playing catch up for some time.

Numbers aside, have voters positively endorsed Obama or just been turned off by his challenger? There’s little doubt that it’s harder to run on ‘change’ when you’ve been in office for four years. Commentators have accused Obama of running a dirty, negative campaign. Some contrast.

But, the real weapon they always had up their sleeves was Mitt Romney. His flip-floppery made conservatives doubt him and independents wary. Was the real Romney the measured, moderate sounding one who ran Massachusetts as Governor between 2003 and 2007? The one we got a glimpse of in the TV debates. Or was it the puritanical, no compromise Mitt, who pounded the primaries and reached out to the evangelicals? We’ll never really know, and neither did the voters.

Romney was a weak candidate. No, scrap that, he was a dreadful candidate. A stronger, more authentic, less wooden one, would have posed Obama serious problems. When you struggle to enthuse your base, as Romney did throughout the primary season, you’re always fighting an uphill battle. Even with the upturn in the economy, a more convincing Republican would have had a real chance. As it was, Romney was never in the game.

The message sloppily, or deliberately, being pumped out from the mainstream media was that this was a too close to call election. Well, yes, if you ignore the realities of the American electoral system it was. Savvier pundits - arise Sir Nate Silver - told us to concentrate on the swing states, and those in the know did just that. Romney rarely led consistently, and by enough, in most of them. The result was a foregone conclusion.

Where does this leave the current Republican set up? The partisan part of me wants to say let’s sit back and watch the Republican Party eat itself. And what a wonderful sight that would be! But, not great for democracy. The Republicans have to decide if they want to be the angry, extreme, misogynist party, relying on one (diminishing) pool of voters, or one that reaches out to all of America, and stops purging itself of its vital, moderate, faction. If there are any of them left.

Obama is re-elected and the world breathes a huge sigh of relief. His victory speech sought to unite America, knowing that he presides over a deeply polarised country. But, with unemployment falling, an economy improving, involvement in Afghanistan coming to end, he’ll also know that good times are just around the corner. Time for some more of that hopey changey thing.  

This article was jointly published by Speaker's Chair and Shifting Grounds on Wednesday 7th November 2012

Eight observations from the final presidential debate

1. President Obama and Mitt Romney have essentially the same foreign policy. The difference is that Obama is a lot more articulate in outlining his. Where he sounded assured and confident and erudite, Romney resorted to language and a tone that would have made George W. Bush proud. His strategy is to “go after the bad guys.”
No doubt many Americans would lap up this talk, but it made him sound amateurish and cowboy-like. Then again, we already had a cowboy in office for a full eight years.

2. Dividing lines were hard to spot. Romney would have imposed sanctions on Iran even earlier. He wants to make them tighter. He’s still banging on about formally labelling China a currency manipulator. He wants to arm the Syrian rebels, if he can actually identify them. As he acknowledged, they’re a disparate bunch. Obama pretty much wants the same, except he’s hesitant about fully arming people who may 20 years in the future use these arms to attack America. It seems some lessons have been learned. Both were gushing in their unstinting and unconditional support for Israel, come what May.

3. Romney cleverly used America’s economic struggles at home with a perceived weakness abroad. High unemployment and record debt undermined America’s standing in the eyes of the world, went Romney’s line. This was his strongest point of the evening.

4. Obama failed to adequately respond to Romney’s accusation that soon after taking office, Obama had embarked on an ‘apology tour.’ In other words, by visiting several Muslim countries, trying to rebuild bridges, win back trust, he was apologising for America’s greatness and making it look weak. Obama should have been more forceful in explaining why this tour was necessary.

5. Discussion often got diverted back to domestic issues, in particular the economy, putting Romney on safer terrain. He regurgitated his five point plan to get American back on track and attacked Obama’s economic record. Obama used this as a chance to lay out his vision on education and belittle Romney’s plan as tried, tested and failed: ‘W.Bush Mark II.” It is this part of the debate that probably got voters’ attention.

6. The format of the second debate looks and feels a lot better. It gives proceedings energy and movement. But last night’s was preferable to the one in Denver - rigidly stuck behind lecterns - with the candidates so close they were almost touching. 

7. This debate will change virtually nothing. Out of all the debates, this one will have minimal impact. Expect polls to barely budge. The first put Romney firmly back in the game, or at least competitive again. The second saw a rejuvenated Obama come out firing and helped stem the loss of support. Last night’s debate may as well not have happened. Why? Foreign Policy is way down on American voters’ priorities. Not just outside the top three, but near the bottom. According to a series of Reuters/Ipsos polls carried out since January, only two per cent of likely voters put “war/foreign conflicts,” and “terrorism/terrorist attacks” as their number one concern. This figure has never even breached the figure of five per cent.

8. Taking this into account, one could reasonable argue why even bother devoting a whole debate to foreign policy? Because Americans want to feel safe. This is a nation riddled with paranoia. Perception matters as much at home as it does abroad. As does trust. Obama did a fine job presenting himself as Americans’ commander-in-chief. Romney did a good job reducing foreign policy to simplistic quips. It didn’t make him sound presidential. It made him sound out of his depth. What Obama would call his ‘credibility problem.’


This comment piece was first published on Shifting Grounds on Tuesday 23rd October 2012

Barack Obama and those Liberal Democrats

Being a Democrat supporter recently has probably involved much gritting of teeth, a certain degree of anger, and at times, a sense of bewilderment.

Many believe that President Obama has been too ready to cave in (or “reach a compromise,” if you prefer) to the demands of the Republican Party, as they themselves, infected by a virulent strain of extremist politics, otherwise known as the Tea Party, become dragged further and further to the right, and away from the more moderate mainstream.

There was at least some comfort to his liberal base on Monday, with President Obama’s call for a "Buffet Tax" which would see earners of over $1m being taxed at a higher rate, and the clamping down on loopholes, which currently sees some of the wealthiest Americans paying a lower rate of tax than the considerably less well off.

But this policy proposal has come off the back of some pretty dispiriting headlines if you find yourself aligned to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.

Firstly, last year, they would have had to witness Barack Obama agreeing to extend deep tax cuts for wealthy middle-class Americans, an initiative first introduced under the previous Bush administration and due to come to an end last December, until Obama’s intervention.

One could reasonably argue that the ‘Buffet Tax’ has been used as a way to nullify the effects of this.

Then came Obama’s deal this summer to end the US debt crisis. It involved (after heavy bargaining and eventual Republican agreement) committing the country to raising its debt ceiling, whist slashing public spending by a mouth-watering $2.5tn over the next 10 years, much of it expected to come from welfare benefits.

What the economist and Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman, described at the time as ‘an abject surrender,’ on the part of the president. Going further, he added that:

 “…Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats.”

MoveOn, a progressive grass-roots organization, boasting 5 million members, called the deal “grotesquely immoral.” Michael Tomasky, a leading liberal commentator, believed this to be: “…the lowest moment of Obama’s presidency,” without him getting a single concession in return. Tomasky asked whether:

“…just as Bush and Rove helped revived liberalism, it now seems plausible that Obama is ushering in a conservative era.”

And just a few weeks ago, Obama delivered a huge snub to environmentalists by postponing [until 2013 at least] new rules on tackling air pollution, as put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency. Rules, which would have:

“…saved up to 12,000 lives [by 2020] and 2.5 million working days and school days lost to the toxic effect of ozone on American lungs each year.”

A move which had MoveOn’s executive director, Justin Reuben, wondering:

“…how they can ever work for President Obama’s reelection, or make the case for him to their neighbors, when he does something like this, after extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and giving in to tea party demands on the debt deal. This is a decision we'd expect from George W Bush.”

There are then the various opinion polls which reflect liberal frustrations. One, jointly carried out in July, by The Washington Post and ABC News found worrying levels of disengagement among liberals, with those who approved of Obama’s handling of the economy falling dramatically from 53% in 2010 to just 31%. Concern over his record on jobs creation was also cited.

Obama’s capitulation to the right, especially over the way he handled the debt ceiling, is an often heard criticism.

As viewed from the outside, it is puzzling to know why, rather than confronting, exposing and taking on his opponents, in particular the Tea Party – a group which would be dismissed as part of the lunatic fringe movement in many other countries - he seems to have pandered to them, continuously giving them the upper hand, and in the process, making himself look weak.

The film maker, Michael Moore, pertinently argues that:

“…each time the president moves to the right, he picks up no votes and loses many.”

This seems to sum up what many Obama supporters have been thinking. The need to look bipartisan on certain crucial issues, and try to appeal to a more moderate America, hasn’t won him many more plaudits, especially amongst independents. A New York Times/CBS News poll out last week showed that 59% of this critical electoral group still disapprove of his performance.

A key to resurrecting some of this support may lie in a shift to the left. An intriguing CNN poll released over the summer found Obama’s approval rating down to 45%, with 54% disapproving of his record in office. But, as CNN’s Polling Director Keating Holland explains:

“…drill down into that number and you'll see signs of a stirring discontent on the left. Thirty-eight percent say they disapprove because President Obama has been too liberal, but 13 percent say they disapprove of Obama because he has not been liberal enough - nearly double what it was in May, when the question was last asked, and the first time that number has hit double digits in Obama's presidency."

Putting it another way, of the almost one in four Americans who disapprove of Obama attribute this to him not being liberal enough. This should make sobering reading for the president.

It is probably surprising that despite the feelings of betrayal, and in contradiction to other polls carried out, Obama can still manage to command huge loyalty amongst liberals.

A Gallup poll last month found, despite everything, 72% of Democrats still backing him, significantly higher than the country as a whole, and rising to 83% amongst those who identify themselves as both liberal and Democratic.

There must be a belief amongst some that the president hopes he has done enough to convince the public that he is able to appeal to a wider audience, not just Democrats, and seek compromise wherever necessary. That he is able to move beyond party politics when the national interest demands it.

The hope must be that Obama is able to cling on for that second term, and free from the shackles of reelection, he is able to get on with pursuing a more progressive agenda.

According to Democratic pollster Paul Maslin, Obama should have no worries about re-energising his followers ahead of next year’s general election:

"He will have a base problem until the time when an opponent emerges, and then 90 percent of the problem will disappear...[and] people will consider the opponent and then he'll look awfully good."

For liberals the world over, let’s hope he is right.

An edited version of this article was first published by Liberal Conspiracy on Saturday 24 September 2011