When British politicians are called upon to embarrass their parties at conferences they tend to sing or recite poetry but the Republicans drag up a film star to talk to the furniture which to anyone outside of America just about sums up Mitt Romney who it is widely perceived over here as a bit of a comedy figure who is on a hiding to nothing but history suggests we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the man waking up as President this November.
An AP-GfK poll this week showed Obama on 47% with 46% favoring Romney but in the 10 swing states where the battle is won or lost, Obama is currently leading in 9 of them, if only slightly, so it is close but Obama does not have history on his side.
No president has ever won an election with his poll rating below 50% at this time of the election cycle and the last person to win an election with unemployment above 7.8% was in 1936, US unemployment today stands at 8.3%.
Some more damning statistics for the Obama re-election is consumer confidence which is measured by the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan sentiment survey, which shows consumer confidence is below the crucial 50 threshold and the incumbent lost in each of the prior three instances where this metric touched the 50 level: in 1975, 1979 and 1991.
Good news for Romney supporters but Ladbrokes still have Obama at 2/5, and Romney at 7/4 but there is a long way to go yet and much more furniture to be spoken to.
7 comments:
Yeah, I know you desperately want obama to get re-elected so he can earn that nobel peace prize right?
Taking the war into Pakistan and escalating the war in Afghanistan wasn't his choice it was bush. Getting in on the bombing of egypt was also a bush decision - not obama.
well, at least he has been good for the US and world economy - i'm throwing up on my computer...
you gotta give him credit for improving the racial tension in america right? well, i mean aside from the fact that now the race card is used daily in the NYT, LA Times, Chicago tribune and every other word out of the DNC mouths...
i hope you are kidding about the republicans using hollywood considering the democrat record of using political and economic geniuses like sean pennis and rottiserie odonnell.
yeah can't have scary guy like romney in office. he might stop the downhill slide...
q
Economically speaking, four years was never going to be anywhere near enough to get out of the hole. And so it's proven.
The best that could have been hoped for in that time would have been to stop digging. I think there are reasonable arguments on both sides as to whether that's happened. So I'm not totally convinced one way or the other.
From what I've read about Romney's economic policies however, I think that significant 're-digging' would occur. He's Wall Street's man through-and-through.
cheezy,
the US economy was declining when obama ran for office and he used it as a platform for his election. turnaround is fair play.
it is impossible to know if his actions made the economy better or worse; however, we can fairly speculate that economy could have done much better than it has.
obama's policies have encouraged people to remain on unemployment. they have forced people out of their small business (not the economy, federal policy) - i know a few.
health care -v- economy
he controlled the house, senate, and white house and what did he do? he created the biggest welfare program in the history of the world - U.S. national health care that did ZERO for the economy - oh, it also available to the millions of illegal aliens from Mexico, Honduras, Panama, etc. Maybe it should be called Western Hemisphere health care. It might help the economy in 10 or 15 years, but nothing now. in addition, all that did was increase taxes and throw the entire industry into turmoil. there are no tangible benefits yet as the legislation is just now taking affect and the benefits begin in 2014.
also, he did not save the auto industry. he saved the auto union and GM. Toyota and Honda manufacturing plants and their auto workers were taking business from GM and Ford rapidly (until the Thailand floods and Japanese earthquake). An interesting factoid - Toyota has a plant in San Antonio Tx near where I work. Ford has their's across the border in Mexico... Never hear the auto unions and democrats mention that outsourcing do we?
q
"we can fairly speculate that economy could have done much better than it has"
You can indeed. And presumably not by implementing the same kinda policies that dug the hole in the first place. (That was my main beef when Obama made his initial economic appointments e.g. Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson, Summers etc...).. How can you make a break with the past if you have the same old faces parroting the same old ideas?
But, as enthralled by Goldman Sachs and the existing vested interests as the current Presidency has been, I think you can expect any Romney-led administration to be much more so.
..."might help the economy in 10 or 15 years, but nothing now..."
..."the benefits begin in 2014..."
Sounds like you rate your leaders much more highly than I rate ours over here, if you give them credit for long-term planning. Our current lot (and the last lot too) don't think any further than the next election - which is one of the major problems with democracy, in my opinion. If Obama's not doing that, then you've got a keeper there, old son! ;)
I'm not desperately wanting Obama to be re-elected, i think what he has done so far stinks but you have the same problem as we have here with the choice being between coca-cola or pepsi so whichever you choose, it isn't that different.
What he has done in America i don't know, he only comes to our attention when what he does leaks outside your borders and that is all i can base either on while you will vote on who is best for you and your country so we view them both through a different lens.
It seems you view our democracy the other way to me Cheezy where i favour more elections because 5 years is too long with no mechanism to remove a party.
I've lived in a country which had a 3 year election cycle, maximum. The parties were literally never not in 'election mode'. It wasn't good.
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