2000th American Serviceman Dies

Today marks a new milestone in the war in Afghanistan.  Following an attack on a remote army base, the number of American causalities rises to 2000. If Obama wins re-election in November the war will finally come to a close in 2014. Ending the war in Afghanistan is a popular one, with the majority of Americans believing that the war should end on or before the 2014 deadline. This is a view held by every section of society, even by the Republicans! Unfortunately if Mitt Romney wins, then the war has no end; he has already declared his opposition to the 2014 deadline and even says that it was a ‘shame’ that Obama ended the war in Iraq.

If you’ve been paying attention to American politics you will notice a refusal to talk about foreign policy on the Republican side. Particularly when it comes to the war in Afghanistan, Romney was blasted for failing to mention the war when he accepted the Republican nomination for president in Tampa, Florida. Gallup also notes that the Democrats are now more trusted on foreign policy than the Republicans, it’s ironic that four years ago Obama was seen as the weaker candidate on foreign policy. Yet as he presided over the killing of Bin Laden, the end of the Iraq war, the decimation of Al-Qaeda and the Arab Spring it is now viewed as a strong point.

The war will not end for two more years. Minimum. There will be more deaths and more sacrifice, for many Americans, the sooner the war ends, the better. 

Prediction Update!

A lot has happened in the American political scene since the last time I tried to predict the outcome of the Presidential race. The Romney campaign has lurched from crisis, to scandal and then to gaffe every week without fail. For that reason I feel I need to update the map I posted here. I no longer believe that Florida will go towards Romney, I also believe that he has no hope whatsoever of Romney winning Ohio, Nevada and Virginia (the latter due to Virgil Goode). The Romney campaign has largely been on a downward trend since the start of the conventions. Obama is currently leading Romney by 4.2% according to the Huffington Post’s poll averages.

Since I last wrote this article the swing states have become increasingly in favour of Obama. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan have all gone from lean Obama to strong Obama, Ohio has moved from being a tossup state to strong Obama! As well as that Iowa, Virginia, Colorado and Florida have all moved from tossup to lean Obama. North Carolina remains tossup and Georgia has moved from lean to strong Romney. This is an awful sign for the Romney campaign, although a lot can change between now and the election it is important to remember that early voting has already begun in a majority of states, including a majority of the swing states. This means that polling numbers right now matter.

The following map is what I think the election result will probably look like in November. As you can see the only changes are Florida and North Carolina, but to be honest I do believe that Romney has a strong chance of taking North Carolina. The debates are still to come, if either one of the candidates trounces the other, you’ll see a huge shift in this map.

Benghazi in Counter-Protests

Two weeks ago, US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens was killed in Benghazi after the US consulate where he was staying was stormed. At about the same time protests were beginning to form across the Middle East in reaction to a crude, offensive US film called "Innocence of Muslims". Immediately the world's media jumped to the conclusion that the two events were connected (myself included). We were wrong. It has now emerged that the reason for the attack was very different, it coincided with the anniversary of 9/11 and was supposed to be revenge for the killing of a high profile Libyan member of Al-Qaeda. Immediately after the attack Republicans in the US called for all aid to Libya to be suspended.

The protests have since subsided, but whilst most of the Arab World was in turmoil due to the video, Benghazi was in turmoil for a very different reason. Recognising that the death of Stevens was nothing to do with the crude and offensive video, the people of Benghazi began to protest the murder of him and his fellow diplomats. The militia believed to be responsible for the attack had its base in Benghazi stormed by civilians and the police, counter protests emerged with protesters holding signs such as "Christopher Stevens was a friend to all Libyans" and "Thugs and killers don't represent Benghazi nor [sic] Islam". I think this is an image we need to see more of in the West, we need to recognise that although there are terrorist groups in the Middle East, most Arabs just want peace. Arabs are just another race of people, they're no different to us here in the West. The sooner we recognise that fact, the sooner peace will come. How can we call for peace in the middle east when there is so much Islamophobia in the press and media, when the majority of coverage of Muslims is extremely negative. Terrorists don't represent Islam, just like Anders Breivik, Pastor Terry Jones and Fred Phelps don't represent Christianity.

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Romney Campaign in Free Fall

Did you read my title? They're not my words, they're the words of a Republican staffer. It would seem that the campaign has been lurching from one crisis to another with no sense of direction. Ever since the convention, Romney has been very quiet compared with his Democratic opponents. The weekend after the convention Romney did not give one single speech and the only event to which the press were invited was one in which Romney went boating... Bizarre, right?

In the past few days Romney has not been doing a lot, on Saturday and Sunday he was at home in Massachusetts; although he was originally meant to have a campaign event on Sunday it was cancelled. On Monday he was in California and on Tuesday he had fundraisers in Utah and Texas. None of those states are swing states. If Romney wants to win the election in November he's going to have to do a lot of campaigning in the swing states. Current poll averages at the Huffington Post show that Obama leads Romney in all of the nine swing states, except North Carolina which is a dead heat.

The latest scandal to hit the Romney campaign could prove devastating, Mother Jones published a video on Monday of Romney at a private campaign event in April. During the event he made a number of comments that could prove ruinous to his presidential aspirations. Romney claimed that 47% of Americans would never vote for him as they didn't pay income taxes and that they basically free-loaded off the government, this has been met with a furious reaction by the public. It is also quite missleading, although 47% of Americans do not pay income taxes, a majority of them pay payroll taxes (this is how social security and medicare are paid) and of the remaining 18%, 8% are seniors and 9% earn less than $20,000 pa. It's also been pointed out on many liberal websites that the states where the majority of the 47%ers reside, are strong red states. In fact of  the 10 states with the highest amount of non-payers only New Mexico is strongly Democratic as well as the swing state of Florida, the other eight states are all red; Idaho, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

Could this be the moment that the Romney campaign implodes? Unless Romney stuns everyone in the debates, the Republicans have no hope.

Syrian Opposition Accused of War Crimes

In an interesting change of events, the Syrian opposition is accused of committing war crimes! Up until now it was mostly only the government that the likes of Human Rights Watch accused of committing horrifying practises. Human Rights Watch has criticised the opposition for performing summary executions and the torture of prisoners and of being infiltrated by extremist Islamists. 

This is not unexpected, there has never been and never will be, a war in which both sides are completely innocent. It is true that most of the attention has been on the regime, which has killed thousands of innocent civilians and has used all resources available to try and crush the revolution. What I believe is most dangerous is the presence of Islamists, they are hoping to take advantage over an unstable Syria. With government attention away from them, it is easier for them to plot against the West and Israel. Unfortunately it could turn worse, when Assad is removed from power Syria will have a problem, central government will be weak and the country will basically be run by militiamen. If a strong, secular, civilian government is installed, then there will be real hope for peace in the Middle East. On the other hand if the country collapses into sectarian warfare, this will just add to the mess that is the current Arab World. 

When the regime collapses the West must be prepared to invest in Syria, otherwise democracy has no hope. Democracy is expensive, and rebuilding Syria will be a difficult task. The infrastructure has basically been destroyed by the Civil War and the country cannot recover unless we help them.

US Consulate in Libya Stormed

In the early hours of this morning four US embassy staff were killed in the American consulate in Benghazi, the second city of Libya. Libya is one of the real success stories of the Arab Spring, a country that had experienced 40 years of the same dictator rose up and ousted him from power in a bloody revolution. Things have been looking increasingly sour in the fledgling democracy, already British war graves have been vandalised and Westerners have been the targets of attacks. The attack of the American consulate is by far the most serious.

Amongst the four dead was the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens who only took up the post since the downfall of Gaddafi. As of yet we do not know who perpetrated the attacks and why they did so. Currently most people believe that the attack was in reaction to an American made video that was uploaded to YouTube that many Muslims have found insulting. Already there have been protests in Egypt over the video and the American embassy in Cairo was stormed! The only other explanation put forward is that the attack was meant to coincide with the anniversary of 9/11. The problem with that theory is that the attack took place on the 12^th (local time), although it would still have been the 11^th across the United States. 

The attack has also caused political issues in America, Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney initially criticised Obama for not taking a hardline approach to the initial protests in Cairo. This has not gone down well with the Obama camp who feel that Mitt Romney is trying to make political hay over a very tragic case.

Regardless of the motive, it is not a good sign for the future stability of Libya. We already know that the central government is very weak, most police work being carried out by armed militias. Disarming them will prove a difficult task.

The End of a Sensational Summer

The closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games in London yesterday evening has marked the end of the fantastic summer of sport this year. Rio have a tough act to follow, but I’m sure the city will step up to the mark in hosting the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic games.

The ParalympicGB athletes have done fantastically, finishing third in the medal table behind Russia and China.

	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	95	71	65	231
2	Russia	36	38	28	102
3	United Kingdom	34	43	43	120
4	Ukraine	32	24	28	84
5	Australia	32	23	30	85
6	USA	31	29	38	98
7	Brazil	21	14	8	43
8	Germany	18	26	22	66
9	Poland	14	13	9	36
10	Netherlands	10	10	19	39

But the Paralympics is about much more than just medal tables and national glory, the whole ideal of the Paralympics is to try an advance disabled people. What began in Stoke Mandeville, the UK in 1948 as a sporting event for British soldiers injured during WWII has flourished in recent years to become the world’s second biggest sporting event (after the Olympics). The Paralympics in London have been the biggest ever; it is the first time the event has sold out – the organisers selling 2.7 million tickets over the course of the games. 164 countries participated in the games, 18 more than in Beijing and it was the Paralympic début for 14 of those countries.

The hope is that these games will change people’s attitudes to disability, no longer perceiving those with disabilities as a drain on society. These athletes have experienced more difficulties than the rest of us; they will likely have experienced bullying and for many of them that were not born with disability will have got their disability in a traumatic experience.

In reality I believe that these games have taught us all something; the only disability is one of confidence. With confidence you can do anything, regardless of race, religion, gender or physical ability. We are all human, and we all deserve a chance.  

Romney will Lose Virginia

A devastating blow has been dealt to Romney in Virginia. The state is one of the seven swing states that Romney really needs to win if he wishes to become President. The problem for Romney is that a third candidate is to appear on the ballot alongside himself and Obama. The other candidates name is Virgil Goode, he represented Virginia’s 5^th Congressional district from 1997 until 2009. Originally he represented the Democratic Party until 2000 before becoming an independent, eventually joining the Republican Party in 2002. After losing his seat in 2009 he has left the Republican Party to join the Constitution Party and is their 2012 Presidential Nominee. Although he has absolutely no national standing, he is well known in Virginia and is very popular amongst many Conservatives, especially in the south-west of the state. In a swing state like Virginia, Romney will need every single vote; the problem here is that every vote for Goode is taking a vote away from Romney. Some polls put Goode as high as 9%, if Goode manages to stay on the ballot Obama will win Virginia.

Although Goode has qualified to appear on the ballot in Virginia, he can still be removed from the ballot if the attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, decides not to allow him on the ballot. Oh and he’s a Republican.

As well as this bad news from Virginia, Romney and his super PACs have pulled their money from Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. The current polls coming out of those three states are very bad for Mitt Romney, so he’s decided to pull the money from those three states and concentrate on the remaining eight states.

Below is a map of America, red states are almost certainly voting Romney and blue states are almost certainly voting Obama. The grey states are the ones in which both campaigns believe they can win, considering Nevada and New Hampshire are both leaning towards Obama relatively strongly this is a good map for Obama. If Goode manages to stay on the ballot in Virginia, then it is a lost cause too. 

Why Obama will win

If Obama wins Florida, Obama wins the election. Currently that would seem to be true from the points I made in the previous article. Yet a lot can happen in two months, the television debates have yet to take place and any number of serious scandals could occur, or a fake Fox scandal. The danger for Obama at the moment is that in a number of the tossup states they have been consistently getting less pro-Obama. Although the Huffington Post’s graphs have always put Obama ahead of Romney in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Virginia and Colorado; the lead is diminishing. Romney could easily move ahead in any of these states, especially Iowa. Although the Huffington Post has put Obama ahead in Florida since January of this year, the lead is miniscule, currently leading Romney by an average of 0.7%, which can’t really be considered a lead at all. In North Carolina the look is even bleaker, Romney would appear to be pulling away from Obama; leading him since May. Although we have yet to see if holding the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina will help at all.

Although the trend is looking bleak for Obama, at least he can pride himself in the fact that he is leading Romney in six of the seven tossup states! Which is surely a good sign!

For Obama to win he needs to know which issues to go hardest at in each state, a large chunk of the Iowan economy is down to wind energy, Obama has increased subsidies to the industry and Romney is promising to get rid of them. Going hard on this issue could prove very beneficial in Iowa. For his running mate Romney has chosen Paul Ryan, the kill-medicare-guy (medicare is the highly popular system for getting elderly people healthcare). A significant proportion of Florida’s population are elderly, Obama should campaign on how he extended medicare’s solvency by eight years and the fact that Ryan’s plan for medicare (endorsed by Romney) is seriously unpopular, even with conservatives. In Ohio Obama should campaign heavily on him saving the auto industry, and Ohio’s economy with it. He also should campaign on protecting union’s rights in Ohio. When union rights were but to a ballot in Ohio last year, they were defended by a 30 point margin, so Obama knows it’s a popular issue.

Overall it will be a very close election, Romney has a real change of winning each of the swing states, but I believe that Obama, if he really goes hard in the tossup states will win the election by a large margin. I don’t think he’ll win by a large margin of the popular vote, but I believe he will be able to get a majority in five of the swing states which will allow him to become president of the USA for four more years.

This is what I predict the map will look like after 4th of November election Although my points
throughout the article would seem to suggest a Obama victory in Florida,
Republican governor, Richard Scott's voter purges and other measures may win the state
for Romney. 

The Race for the White House

Today is the final day of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. We all know this is a tight race, so every percentage point matters. If you look at the Gallup daily tracking poll (at time of writing) Obama is leading Romney by only one point on the national scale. Yet it doesn’t really matter what Americans overall want; due to the irregularities caused by the Electoral College system. In 2000 George W. Bush was elected as president, despite his Democratic opponent, Al Gore, getting more votes. The system is quite simple to explain for anyone who doesn’t know it; basically whoever wins a majority in each state gets all the state’s Electoral Colleges. The number of Electoral Colleges each state gets varies depending on its population; California is the largest state in the union and receives 55 Electoral Colleges whereas the eight smallest states receive only 3 Electoral Colleges.

So in the end, if you vote for Obama and you live in Texas, your vote in the presidential race doesn’t really count as we all know Texas will vote Republican. Likewise in California, if you’re a Republican, your vote won’t really count as we all know that California will vote Democrat. The states in which your vote really counts (in the presidential race) are the swing states. A swing state is a state in which either candidate has a chance of winning. Probably the most famous swing states are Florida and Ohio, we remember Florida being the key to deciding the 2000 Presidential Election. Ohio last voted against the winner in 1960, also a Republican has never won the White House without winning Ohio. According to the Huffington Post (which tracks a number of different polls) there are currently seven swing states and five which only ‘lean’ to a candidate. That makes 12 states which either Romney or Obama could win.

According to the Huffington Post, 17 states are deemed as “Strong Obama” totalling 211 Electoral Colleges and four states deemed “lean Obama”. The lean Obama states are Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Together both categories make up 247 Electoral Colleges. On the Republican side the Huffington Post deems 22 states as “Strong Romney” totalling 175 Electoral Colleges and only Georgia is deemed as “lean Romney”, adding 16 Electoral Colleges to Romney’s total.

This leaves the seven states I mentioned earlier as the real swing states and between them they have 100 Electoral Colleges, which makes the election winnable by both sides. The states deemed “tossup” by the Huffington Post are Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.  Obama has a slightly easier job than Romney in one aspect, as shown above Obama leads Romney in the strong and lean categories by 56 Electoral Colleges. This means he needs to capture only 23 Electoral Colleges to win the election.  If Obama wins in Florida, then he wins the election as Florida has 29 Electoral Colleges. Even if Romney wins the four more populous tossup states and loses the three lesser populated states then he still loses, but by a wafer thin four Electoral Colleges.

In the next piece I will explain why each candidate can win the election, even if things look like they’re going Obama’s way. 

David Cameron's Reshuffle

David Cameron’s reshuffle has already caused tensions to rise in the political world, mainly over the way he has dealt with the transport secretary. Justine Greening, the transport secretary until yesterday, was very vocal about her opposition to the idea of a third runway at Heathrow. In recent weeks there has been rumours circulating that the government may be preparing to U-turn on this policy, previously the coalition agreement had ruled out any third runway at Heathrow. Greening’s constituency of Putney is under the flight path of Heathrow, there is stern opposition to a third runway. Although Greening received a large majority in 2010, she would be threatened by Labour if she was the transport secretary to push through a third runway proposal. She was replaced as by Patrick McLoughlin, MP for Derbyshire Dales in the Midlands. He would not lose any votes over a third runway. Boris Johnson reacted immediately to the change saying “There can only be one reason to move her – and that is to expand Heathrow Airport.” Boris is vehemently opposed to any expansion of Heathrow Airport, he favours a totally new, four runway, airport that would be built to the east of London. Although the government is totally denying any change of policy, most people are expecting a U-turn within the coming months.

Probably the second most controversial move is that of Jeremy Hunt, before yesterday Hunt was the – highly unpopular – secretary for Culture, Media and Sport. Despite his complete and total mishandling of the BSkyB bid and the view in the public that he is corrupt, he managed to receive a promotion – most people thought he was going to be fired altogether! Or at least demoted! Instead he has managed to be promoted to Secretary for Health, now his job is selling the extremely unpopular Health and Social Care Bill to the public. Remember this bill has around a 10% approval rating. Considering that Hunt is probably the second least popular minister in the government (the least popular is probably the former health secretary Andrew lansley) it would seem a terrible idea to ask him to sell the least popular bill in the history of the country (most bills only really become unpopular when they’re enacted).

Most of the rest of the changes are not controversial, the reshuffle sees the return of David Laws, a centre-right Liberal Democrat. It also sees the demotion of Ken Clarke from Justice Secretary to Minister without portfolio; he is replaced by Chris Grayling who is seen as hard-line Conservative on the issues over imprisonment and justice. Originally Iain Duncan Smith was offered the job of Justice Secretary but refused, choosing to stay as Work and Pensions secretary. Baroness Warsi was replaced by Grant Shapps as chairperson of the Conservative Party.

As was expected, there was no change in the top positions with the home, foreign and defence secretaries all keeping their jobs as well as all liberal democrats and the chancellor George Osborne.

Will this new team turn the country around? We’ll have to wait and see, unlikely as the government has promised no policy change.

Cameron Prepares to Reshuffle

David Cameron has embarked on his first reshuffle of the cabinet since the coalition took office in 2010. Currently nobody knows exactly who has been fired, hired or moved, all we know is that it is a very extensive reshuffle that only excludes those in the highest office. The Home Secretary, Teresa May, Foreign Secretary William Hague, the chancellor George Osborne, the deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the business secretary Vince Cable are all supposed to be safe. David Cameron has seriously reduced flexibility compared with previous Prime Ministers as he is part of a coalition. For all his ideas he will have to consult the leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg and that makes everything more difficult.

There are certain people that the press think are people to watch. David Laws, the Liberal Democrat MP who resigned two years ago will likely return to the cabinet. Other people currently in the cabinet, health secretary Andrew Lansley and Culture, Media and Sports secretary Jeremy Hunt, are ones that many believe will be given less senior positions or fired from the cabinet altogether. Both have received much negative attention in the press. Lansley presided over the NHS reforms which have an approval rating of less than 10% and have seriously damaged the government. Hunt is thought to be far too close to the Murdochs, and the fact that he was handed the BSkyB decision angered a lot of people who felt he was far too biased to make a good decision.

I’ll be better able to report on what Cameron has done later tomorrow as news come on. The government drastically needs a revitalisation if they are to win the next election; the current polls suggest that it will take a lot more than a reshuffle to do that, but a comeback must start somewhere.

David Laws would be a good choice for government unity
as he is viewed as a centre-right Liberal Democrat