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

Ten observations from the second presidential debate

1.      Unlike the first debate, this one was worth staying up for. A good array of audience questions, well moderated, with follow up questions, ensured we got a proper contest rather than the drab affair in Denver. Although as an unashamed Obama supporter anything would have been better than two weeks ago.

 I also really liked the format and the setting. The audience wrapped around the two men making it seem intimate but almost simultaneously claustrophobic. Something similar should be tried in Britain at the next general election, assuming all three party leaders agree to them again. In my opinion, they shouldn’t have any choice.

2.     These men really don’t appear to like one another. Lots of finger-jabbing and pointing and dismissive glances. At one point Romney treated the president with a curt: “you’ll get your moment in a minute. I’m speaking.”

3.      Mitt Romney made a strong start but, unlike the Denver debate, faded. He ran out of puff about 40-50 minutes in and sounded repetitive, often failing to answer questions directly, instead using it to lay out his grand economic plan whilst trashing Obama’s record.

4.      Romney was at his best, his most commanding, his most polished, when talking about the economy. He attacked the rising deficit, the unemployment figures, especially amongst women, and what he sees as policies which are crippling not healing the economy.

5.       Obama couldn’t have been any worse than the first debate. Luckily for his supporters he wasn’t. In fact he raised his game as much as his aides had been briefing he would. He made a slow start but quickly got into his stride giving a terrific response to the second question on energy and what had been achieved in four years, and what would still be achieved with a heavy focus on renewables. Romney’s insistence that America drill and drill like never before, would have made even the softest of environmentalists weep.

6.      Both men gave weak answers to the question on gun control. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear it, but to listen to the right to bear arms being defended makes the average Brit/European despair. Even after Obama had described the number of times he’s had to console grieving school shooting victims’ families, better enforcement of the current law was his only solution. That’s all. Guns, God and cars. The untouchables of American politics.

7.      Romney’s “binders full of women” comment was unfortunate and clumsy but hardly catastrophic. We’ve all heard far worse. Romney’s said far worse. By his gaffe-prone standards this was lame stuff.

8.      The Libya question and the reaction to the killing of the US ambassador and other Americans in Benghazi showed us Obama at his strongest and most statesmanlike. It also demonstrated how being tough on national security is a must almost from day one for a Democratic president. For a Republican, this is a given. Romney’s accusation that Obama failed to treat the attack as a terrorist one (as opposed to being part of the protests for the anti Muslim film) and then spent several days back on the campaign trail was met with an angry response. Not only did Romney have his facts wrong, as the debate moderator pointed out (a convention breaker? Not the done thing at these debates I imagine), but Obama didn’t take too kindly to the charge that he had handled this badly and insensitively.

My own view is that the Obama camp treating the incident as “an act of terror” before waiting a couple of weeks to actually confirm this, strengthens not weakens his response. What’s wrong with waiting until all the facts are fully known? Isn’t this the correct and most appropriate thing to do before jumping in all guns blazing?

9.       President Obama was consistent throughout in his view that the wealthiest should pay the most in taxes, a point he hammered home time and again. Romney reiterated his opposition to such a stance. A clear dividing line laid out once again in full view of the public’s gaze.

10.  Romney knows he doesn’t have the personality, the charisma, or charm of Obama. Even those who disagree with Obama’s policies prefer him as a person. The final question, and my personal favourite, asked of both men: “What do you believe is the biggest misperception that the American people have about you as a man and a candidate?” Apart from spelling out how much he cares for all Americans (i.e. not the 47% he dismissed), Romney brushed the question aside and used it as another chance to say what he’d do if he became president, and what Obama has failed to do. Obama’s reply was quite interesting, focusing on what he sees as the misunderstanding that people have of him that the government can do everything, including creating jobs.  He also, much to the delight of his base no doubt and what he failed to mention in Denver, used this as his opportunity to ram Romney’s 47% comment back down his throat.

Instant polls called the debate for Obama. From what I saw I would have given it 55-45 in Obama’s favour.  Will it reverse the tide of support for Romney? Possibly. Does it strengthen Romney? Unlikely, but neither does it weaken him much. Will this performance please Obama’s base? Definitely.

But I can’t see much change in the polling. With so many polls released and so many presenting such conflicting pictures it’s hard to know what to believe. I think the most sensible conclusion, and one other commentators have been pushing for weeks, is that the debates won’t change an awful lot. Most voters have already made up their minds. Romney’s surge has come too late in the day. The Obama team have run a campaign as rigorous and as organised as four years ago targeting key swing voters a lot earlier, and in greater numbers, than Romney. My prediction of several months still stands: Obama to win by three points.

 

This article was jointly published by Speaker's Chair and Shifting Grounds on Wednesday 17th October 2012