US Elections

The biggest election news of the year was certainly Barack Obama’s re-election as President of the United States. Obama won 51% of the vote and 332 Electoral Colleges to Romney’s 47% and 206 Electoral Colleges. Although the victory was decisive for Obama, all through the race the media outlets were calling the election neck-and-neck. Some pundits believed that it would be the closest election the US has ever seen (clearly forgetting just how close the 2000 election was). Apart from Romney, one of the biggest losers was Karl Rove. Rove sees himself as a kingmaker having helped George W. Bush get elected in 2000 and 2004 and helping with the election of Republicans in the 2010 mid-terms. Despite his previous successes, his future is uncertain thanks to his failure in the 2012 elections. Rove ran two superPACs, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, together the PACs spent over $300 million on the Presidential race and some Senatorial races. In every single race Rove invested in, the Republican in that race lost. Combine that with his live meltdown on Fox news during the election, Rove’s future is certainly unsafe.

Obama can certainly be delighted with his win, he is only the fourth president in the last century to win two elections with over 50% of the popular vote, the others were FDR (1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944), Eisenhower (1952 and 1956) and Reagan (1980 and 1984). For Democrats the election was also good downticket, picking up seats in the House, Senate and many state legislatures. Despite this, Democrats still won’t control the House even though they got one million more votes than Republicans! You see Republicans won control over many state legislatures in 2010. This meant that when the census figures were released and Congressional districts were redrawn, Republicans redrew them to favour themselves. This form of anti-democracy gerrymandering is performed  by both parties, for Democrats it was just unfortunate that it happened right after Republicans swept to power. As well as success for offices, liberal ideas also succeeded at the ballot box.

In Massachusetts and Connecticut voters decided to legalise medical Marijuana, whilst Arkansas rejected a similar ballot measure. Although Oregon rejected outright legalisation of Marijuana, both Colorado and Washington legalised it for recreational use! Gay rights having failed in 33 of 34 ballot initiatives prior to November, including in North Carolina in February, actually saw serious successes for the first time! In November the three states that had legalisation of gay marriage on the ballot, gay rights won! This meant that Maine, Maryland and Washington became the first states to legalise gay marriage by popular vote. In Minnesota voters rejected adding a constitutional amendment to the state constitution that would ban gay marriage. This will embolden Democrats in Minnesota who take control of the both houses in the state legislature in 2013 to try and legalise gay marriage.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, 2012 wasn’t a completely blue whitewash, Wisconsin spelled out a big defeat for them. When the republican state legislature and governor, Scott Walker, passed anti-union legislation in the state it infuriated Democrats and Unions. A similar law had been passed by Republicans in Ohio but was repealed when Ohio voters forced a referendum on the issue. Unfortunately for Wisconsinites this option was not available to them, so instead they tried to recall the governor. They got enough signatures on the ballot, but despite all their best efforts, Walker survived the recall election.

Despite that rather major setback, Democrats can certainly say that 2012 was a good year for them and their beliefs. 

Obama hugging Michele after winning the race
source: Obama's facebook page

Obama Wins!

Barack Obama has been re-elected as President of the United States of America. There were scenes of jubilation last night at Obama HQ in Chicago as the networks called Ohio, and therefore the presidency, for Obama. The scenes at Romney HQ in Boston were much quieter with some people even crying. Many were expecting a very close night; one which kept Americans up to dawn as they waited for a network to call the election. The reality was surprisingly different, at 11:15pm EST (4:15am UK time) NBC called the entire election for Obama.

On Twitter I called the election much earlier, after the networks declared Pennsylvania so quickly I believed that Obama’s chances were very, very high. The only electoral votes that Obama won in 2008 and lost in 2012 were Indiana and Nebraska’s Second Congressional District, both of which were expected results and North Carolina, which Romney won by 2.2%.

Florida was extraordinary again last night; both candidates were basically tied the entire night! At one point just 3,000 votes separated them despite over 6.4 million votes already being declared. People began to wonder if Florida would be the controversy that it was in 2000 when just 500 votes decided who won Florida and therefore the presidency. Either candidate could still win as provisional ballots still need to be counted, after this happens if the margin of victory less than 0.5% then an automatic recount occurs.

At the beginning of the evening a lay person may have thought that Romney was running away with it in Virginia. For the first couple of hours after Virginia’s polls closed Romney was leading by up to 17 points! The reason for this massive margin? Republican counties were releasing their results much faster than the Democratic ones. This explains why the networks called Wisconsin for Obama despite Romney leading at the time, simply it was down to which counties had reported their votes thus far.

Here are the swing states and their margin of victory for the winning candidate:

State	Margin	% reporting
Colorado	O - 4.7%	95%
Florida	Not called
Iowa	O - 5.6%	99%
Nevada	O - 6.6%	99%
New Hampshire	O - 5.7%	99%
North Carolina	R - 2.2%	100%
Ohio	O - 1.9%	99%
Wisconsin	O - 6.7%	99%
Virginia	O - 3.0%	99%

Yet Romney did make a bit of history, although it’s not something he’ll be telling people: He lost his home state by the largest margin that a Republican or Democrat has ever done. He lost Massachusetts by 23.2%, his nearest rival is Herbert Hoover who lost Iowa by 18 points in 1932!

Yet the presidential race is far from the only election that occurred last night, 10 governorships, 34 Senate seats and 435 House seats were up for grabs as well as positions in state politics and numerous ballot initiatives and referendums.

The Senate turned out very well for the Democrats, considering they were expected to lose control of the Senate at the beginning of this cycle. They managed to flip Indiana and Massachusetts from red to blue as well as pick up a seat in Connecticut which had previously been held by an independent. The open seat in Maine went from a Republican to an independent, Angus King. He is expected to caucus with the Democrats. The only piece of good news for Republicans here was the gain of Nebraska from the Democrats. The makeup of the Senate will go from 51 Democrats, two independents (who caucus with the Democrats) and 47 Republicans to 53 Democrats, two independents (who are expected to caucus with the Democrats and 45 Republicans.

There was excellent news for the Republicans in the House; they managed to retain their majority. In fact, there is barely any chance from 2010, currently there are 193 Democrats called, the same number as the current congress; so not a great night for Democrats in this area.

In the Gubernational Elections there has only been one change so far, North Caroline flipped from Democrat to Republican. Indiana, North Dakota and Utah all stayed red whilst West Virginia, Delaware, Vermont and New Hampshire all remained blue, Washington is still undeclared.

The election was a good one for left-wing ideals, both Washington and Colorado legalised Marijuana for recreational use. In Maine, Maryland and Washington gay marriage was legalised or upheld whilst Minnesota voted not to ban it. Considering that before this election gay rights had only won one referendum (which was later overturned in another referendum), a clean sweep of all four is a major victory.

This election was undoubtedly a success for the Democrats, yet the results have meant that there is going to be barley any change in Washington DC. The Democrats still control the Senate and presidency; the Republicans control the House and can filibuster in the Senate. In fact things could get even less bi-partisan in the Senate, the three Republicans being replaced by democrats or independents are all ones open to compromise; Olympia Snowe in Maine, Dick Lugar in Indiana and Scott Brown in Massachusetts. With fewer moderate voices on the Republican side, it is easy to see how this Congress could actually be worse than the last. And there’s nothing Obama can do about it.

What About a Tie?

The results of the presidential election are likely to be extremely close, in both the Electoral Colleges and the popular vote. To become president of the US you need a majority in the Electoral Colleges. The problem here is that there are 538 college votes, which is an even number; so a tie is at least theoretically possible.

It is unlikely that a tie will occur in 2012 but it is far from impossible. Of the nine swing states, if Obama wins Wisconsin, Ohio and New Hampshire whilst Romney wins Nevada, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida then they both receive 269 votes and the race is tied.

So what happens next? Any normal person could reasonably assume that you would defer to the popular vote! If you though that then you would be wrong, instead a complex system kicks in where the presidency could be temporarily be held by Joe Biden, Paul Ryan or even the Speaker of the House, John Boehner.

When the race is tied, the House of Representatives gets to decide who is President. You might expect that each of the 435 Representatives gets one vote each – an odd number so no chance of a tie! Yet, once again, the American electoral system departs from sanity. Instead of 435 Representatives voting, they have to vote as 50 states. This is extremely disproportionate, consider this; California has a population of 38 million people and has 53 Representatives, yet only gets one vote in a tie. On the other hand Wyoming has a population of 560,000 people and has one Representative in the House, yet it gets the same amount of votes as California in a tie. To make matters worse, 25 states have an even number of Representatives so the process could be slowed if their internal voting is tied.

You might have thought that the insanity would stop there, but you’d once again be wrong. So whilst the House picks the President, the Senate gets to pick the Vice-President. This could result in the President being a Republican and the Vice-President being a Democrat, or vice versa. Now, unlike the House the Senate is already disproportionate in how seats are allocated; every state gets two Senators regardless of population.  This also causes more problems as there are 100 Senators, which means that there is (again) a risk of a tie. Great.

If the House is having trouble picking the President and the Senate has already picked the Vice-President then he/she becomes acting President. But if both branches of Congress are having trouble then the Speaker of the House becomes acting President until someone gets chosen!

So how would things work out for this Presidential election? To an outsider you would think that the elected members of congress would vote for whoever won the most of the popular vote. To someone who has an understanding of what American politics is like now, I wouldn’t be too sure. Bi-partisanship is dead in America, particularly on the Republican side. In primaries across the country incumbent Republicans were chucked out by the party base in favour of those who promised to end compromise. This is most notable in the case of Indiana Senator, Dick Lugar. The Republicans in Congress are being held hostage by their base; a Republican would know that they risk losing their party’s nomination if they were to vote for Obama: a man the Republican base hate vociferously. If Romney wins the popular vote, I could see some Democrats voting for Romney out of respect for democracy, but many would vote against him.

So suddenly if becomes very important as to who wins Congress. In the House it is highly likely that the Republicans will maintain control and in the Senate it is likely that the Democrats will maintain control. As each state gets one vote, individual congressional races become very important on a Presidential scale! Polling is quite scarce for individual House races, so it would be easy for some states to go either way. It’s easier to predict the Senate as there are only 33 Senators up for election and polling is more common for Senate races.

If we were to take the polls as definite for the House, then you see Republicans having a majority of representatives from 31 states, the Democrats taking a majority in 16 states, two states are impossible to tell and one (New Jersey) is expected to be split.

Blue for Democratic Majority
Red for Republican majority
Orange for Tossup
Purple for Tie

In the Senate if we take the polls as definite and combine them with the Senators not for re-election you would find a Democratic majority of four or five. The following map indicates what it looks like (red for two Republican Senators, blue for two Democratic Senators and Purple for states with one from each party).

So if there is a tie, the House will likely vote for Mitt Romney and the Senate for Joe Biden. That could make some interesting meetings… 

Obama Vs. Romney Round III

Last night Romney and Obama sparred for the last time in Boca Raton, Florida attempting to put on their best show to woo the nation. Although I do believe that the debate was very close, with Obama having the edge, a CBS instant poll put it much more pro-Obama. These are the results: Obama 53%, Romney 23% or a tie: 24%. This is far larger than I would have thought, but it may not have much of a lasting effect. Most Americans care about the economy more than anything else; Bill Clinton didn’t say “It’s the economy stupid” for nothing!

Although the debate was built to be about foreign policy, it was basically a discussion on the Middle East. America’s close allies in Europe never got a mention, the special relationship never came up, the BRIC countries (bar China) didn’t get discussed. Latin America was largely ignored, the drug wars in Mexico didn’t even get mentioned despite the escalating violence and instability. Sub-saharan Africa was not even mentioned as well as America’s alliances in the South-East Asia and Pacific region. Another big miss was the economic crisis in Europe, considering its potential to send the world economy into freefall, its absence was notable. So basically the whole 90 minutes was spent on the Middle East, in particular Iran and Israel. Iran was mentioned 47 times, Israel 35 and America’s (supposed) closest ally, the UK was only mentioned twice.

The issue of Iran last night was an interesting topic, Romney accused Obama of going soft on Iran. He said that Iran saw America as being weak. What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make, Obama easily took this fabrication apart. The fact that Iran is the most isolated and the weakest it’s ever been is a testament to Obama’s leadership on the international stage. Iran’s currency has lost 80% of its value since the new sanctions came in place and its oil exports have plummeted to record lows. The main discussion around Iran centred on its nuclear programme and how to stop it. Neither candidate fully  told us quite how they’d stop Iran getting nuclear weapons. All we know is just how bad it would be if they did get WMDs. Obama said that the current sanctions were working very well, having caused the Iranian economy to collapse.

On the topic of Israel, Romney was very critical of Obama, when Obama took his first foreign trip as president he went to the Middle East without visiting Israel. Romney said that had emboldened Israel’s enemies and made America look weak. For some historical context no Republican president has ever visited Israel during their first term, not even Ronald Reagan. Obama’s main reply to the claims are the fact that America and Israel are sharing an unprecedented amount of military technology and information.

Beyond Israel and Iran, other Middle Eastern topics included Libya, Egypt and Syria. If you were watching last week’s debate you will remember the Benghazi question, the one Romney totally botched. This week the focus on Libya was not on Benghazi, rather the revolution that had taken place in 2011 that overthrew Gaddafi. Both candidates, last night, agreed that the administration had done the right thing in Libya. Yet Obama to time to remind Romney of how, during the Libyan intervention, he had accused Obama of ‘mission creep’, suggesting America should pull out. In regards to Libya’s neighbour, Egypt, Romney criticised Obama for not reacting to the revolution faster. This is despite Obama being one of the first world leaders to call for the dictator, President Mubarak, to resign. When they spoke on Syria Romney seemed to have the same position as Obama! They both support the rebels, they both would consider arming rebels (but they both worry about arms falling into extremists’ hands) and they both ruled out the prospect of an intervention which involved a land invasion. Although Romney declared it a disgrace that Assad was still in power and that Obama should do more, he failed to articulate what Obama should be doing. The discussion on Syria turned downright stupid when Romney said the following:

“Syria is Iran’s only ally in the Arab World. It’s their route to the sea.”

If you have a basic understanding of the geography of the Middle East you’ll know that this is an extremely bizarre statement. Firstly Iran has no border with Syria at all; Iran would need to go through Turkey or Iraq if they wished to take that route to the sea. Yet more importantly is the fact that Iran has 2,440km of coastline (according to the CIA World Factbook). Just take a look at the following map!

 

Just let that sink in, Romney doesn’t even remotely know the geography of the Middle East. This is something every Congressman and Senator should know, never mind the President.

Somewhat surprisingly, an important part of all three presidential debates is the issue of what to do about China! For Obama this would be a relatively easy area to score some points, Obama has doubled exports to China, as well as this he has brought twice as many cases to the WTO of Chinese trade malpractice as Bush did in eight years. More importantly, he has won every case that has been decided. When Obama brought one particular case to try and save 1,000 jobs, Romney called him “protectionist”. Yet despite these facts Romney continues to try and attack Obama on the issue.

Overall I feel that Obama probably did slightly better, but it will not be foreign policy that decides this election.

Romney and Obama in the Midst of the debate

Obama vs. Romney Round II

Democrats across American have breathed a collective sigh of relief today after Obama’s excellent performance in last night’s debate.

The debate was in a very different setting to the first one. The debate is supposed to be like a town hall meeting with the candidates answering questions from an audience of un-decided voters. The questions asked ranged from the economy to women’s rights as well as education and foreign policy.

It did not take long for Romney and Obama to have some serious clashes. The first was on the issue of energy, Romney claimed that Obama had cut permits in half for oil companies to drill on public land and that production was down across public land. This is simply not true, production has increased on public land during the Obama administration. When asked what Romney would do to stop the perpetual rise in oil prices he said he would drill anywhere and everywhere regardless of the consequences. This wouldn’t necessarily work, oil prices are very high at the moment but so are the production numbers. The main reason for the high price, despite the high production rates is because of global demand. Countries like China, India and Brazil are growing very fast and need more energy to fuel that growth. The result is that the rising supply is being out-paced by the sky-rocketing demand.

Immigration has been a hard fought issue for many years now, considering the fact that it’s never been resolved it had to come up at some point. Again Romney decided to sputter nonsense when he spoke about how self-deportation was the answer to the immigration crisis. Romney argued that green cards should be handed to graduates from other countries to get the educated to move to the United States. This was very bizarre considering earlier in the evening he had mentioned the fact that 50% of new graduates were unemployed. Obama was much stronger on this area, he spoke of his support for the Dream Act (which Romney said he would veto if President) as well as making sure that all criminals were deported. He criticised Romney’s support for the highly controversial Arizona ‘papers please’ law; Obama specifically referenced the time when Romney said it was a “model for the nation”. Later Romney replied to that accusation claiming that he was only referencing to the e-verify portion of the law, despite the tape clearly showing Obama to be correct.

By far the question I was most shocked about coming up was the gun laws question. I was genuinely in shock, gun laws are only really considered by the fringes of the Democratic Party and never get a mention on the national stage. Despite the exceedingly high rate of gun violence in the United States it is simply not an issue with voters! Obama’s answer was probably not popular with a majority of Americans, he said that he would support an assault weapons ban. He said he believed that guns that were designed for soldiers should not be on the streets. Obama also said that better education and a change in society would help bring down violence. Romney, on the other hand, rejected the idea of an assault weapons ban, which is a change from his position whilst governor of Massachusetts. Whilst governor he signed a state-wide assault weapons ban into law! Romney then went on to talk about how making sure every child has two parents will help reduce gun violence… Yes, he genuinely said that! He basically accused single parents of being the reason for gun violence in the United States!

The next post discusses the economy.

Their performance in the debates has been described in the
media and press as "two alpha males" who were
"attempting to circle each other and intimidate each other"!

Debate II - the Economy

Other questions were tackled just as ferociously. The issue over the economy is probably the most important one of the presidential debate. The questions asked during the debate focused on jobs, the deficit, taxes and outsourcing. Although he performed better this time than in the last debate, I do believe Obama could have been a lot stronger on the economy. Obama criticised Romney for his “Let Detroit go Bankrupt” opinion back in 2009 (which he has since maintained). Obama also tried to tie Romney to the deficit. Obama claimed that Romney’s tax cuts would add $5 trillion to the deficit, his extra military spending $2 trillion and the extension of the bush-era tax cuts would add $1 trillion giving a whopping grand total of $8 trillion! In the hope of trying to claw back, Romney spouted his six studies prove your wrong nonsense. Obama pointed out, correctly, that these studies are both highly dubious and far from non-partisan. More Romney lies came from his “Obama doubled the deficit” line of attack, it is simply not true. The budget deficit has gone down under Obama’s leadership by about $300 billion. Although the overall deficit is still very high, nobody could seriously argue that Obama could have gotten rid of it in four years.

The biggest issue for Obama is the jobs numbers; currently unemployment is at 7.8%. This is the same figure as January 2009, the month that he was inaugurated. Romney reminded Americans that for basically all of Obama’s presidency unemployment has been above 8% and no president has gotten re-elected with unemployment that high since FDR (Obama also had to deal with the worst crash since 1929, but Romney decided to ignore that part).  Romney said that after the “Reagan Recession” unemployment was back to a good rate by the end of his first term. The major flaw here is that Reagan didn’t have to deal with the severe recession Obama did, they’re not remotely comparable.

We all know that one of Obama’s main attacks on Romney is that he will raise taxes on the middle class whilst lowering taxes for the wealthy. It’s is because this is what Romney has been running on for the past year and it’s what he did as governor of Massachusetts in the mid-2000s. Now Romney says that the tax rates for the wealthy remain the same and he will cut taxes for the middle class. It’s very difficult to know what he will actually do in office.

One of the more surprising questions to come up was the issue of outsourcing. This is naturally good ground for Obama as Romney’s company; Bain Capital has investments in companies that are “pioneers of outsourcing”. Obama said that loopholes should be closed and that there should be no tax incentives for companies to shift jobs overseas. When attacked by Romney on how weak he was in regards to China’s currency manipulation and unfair trading practices Obama claimed that he had put extraordinary pressure on China. He told the audience of how he helped to save 1,000 American jobs by refusing to allow faulty Chinese tyres on the market whereas Mitt Romney said he should do nothing, that Obama was being protectionist. 

The final post will discuss the Benghazi question.

Debate II - Benghazi

The most memorable moment of the debate came in the form of a question on Benghazi. After a series of questions that Obama had an advantage on, this should have been one in which Romney steamed ahead! It’s been a major talking point for the right when the issue of foreign policy comes up; they speak of the anger at how slow Obama was to react and they were furious when he apologised for the American video whilst American embassies were being attacked (the last point is a complete fallacy). This can no longer be a right-wing talking point. This is how the exchange took place:

Romney – I… I think it’s interesting the president just said something which is that on the day after the attack, he went to the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror. [looks at Obama] You said in the Rose Garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. [Looks at Obama for an answer, Obama nods]. It was not a spontaneous demonstration.

Obama: Please proceed.

Romney: Is that what you’re saying?

Obama: Please proceed governor.

Romney: I… I… I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

Obama: Get the transcript.

Crowley: It… He did in fact, sir… call it an act of terrorism.

Obama: Can you say that a little louder Candy? [Laughter and applause]

Crowley: He did call it an act of terror. It did as well take… it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea of there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.

Romney: This… the administration… the administration… indicated that this was a… reaction to a… to a video and was a spontaneous reaction.

Crowley: They did.

Romney: It took them a long time to say this was a terrorist act by a terrorist group and… and to suggest… am I correct in that regard? On Sunday your… your secretary or…

As you can see Romney royally messed this talking point up, in completely botching the question on live, national TV Romney has turned a very successful Republican talking point into a Democratic one. Even those on the right have admitted that Romney messed that question up.

In polls of uncommitted voters, most believed that Obama won the debate, which is exactly what the Democrats needed to lift their spirits. Although Romney’s defeat in this debate was not as sizeable as Obama’s defeat in the last one it certainly puts a stop to the momentum of Romney. So currently Obama and Romney have both taken one debate, whoever wins the third debate may will win the presidency. Good news for Obama: the third debate is on foreign policy.

The Real Deficit Hawk

After his bruising defeat in the first presidential debate, Obama has to try and land as many punches as he can in tonight’s debate. Watching Biden’s performance will give Obama the proof he needs that being “too polite” is not the way to go, he must be forceful and call out Romney when he lies.

Obama does come into debates with a slight advantage amongst voters. According to a poll of registered voters by ABC News and the Washington Post, Obama leads Mitt Romney in practically every area of policy that they asked about. Here are the numbers:

Who would do a better job on…?:

The Economy                     Obama +4

Taxes                                    Obama +5
Health Care                        Obama +6

International Affairs       Obama +10

Unexpected crisis            Obama +12

Medicare                             Obama +15

The only area on which Obama falls behind Mitt Romney is that of reducing the deficit; Romney leads Obama by three points in this field. What I don’t understand is how Romney can possibly be ahead on this area. If we look at Obama’s record and the record of Republicans and Democrats over the last 40 years, then you begin to wonder why the Republicans have a reputation for being deficit hawks. Of the three Republicans to be president in that period, all of them have added to the budget deficit by significant amounts. George W. Bush has the worst record of any modern president, followed by George H. W. Bush and then Ronald Reagan. Of the three Democratic presidents in that same period, only Jimmy Carter added to the budget deficit, even so he added less than any of the Republicans. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are the only presidents of the past 40 years to actually reduce the deficit! For some more historical context, the last Republican to balance a budget was Dwight D. Eisenhower who was president from 1953 – 1961.

So you would think, with the weight of historical context favouring Democrats, and with Obama’s own record on reducing the deficit, that Mitt Romney must have some fantastic plan to reduce the deficit. You would imagine that he is very precise about what he is going to do and that even Democrats could not touch his plan because it was so fantastic.

You’d think so wouldn’t you, but that could not be further from the truth.

Romney has promised a sky-rocketing in defence spending, unseen since the Korean War, a $5 trillion tax cut for the wealthy and all at the same time as balancing the deficit. If you were watching the first presidential debate you may remember when Obama accused Romney of the $5 trillion tax cut (figures sighted to the non-partisan CBO), Romney said that six studies have trashed the CBO study. That’s basically a lie as none of the six are actual studies, three are blog posts, two by a Conservative think tank and one by a Romney advisor, one is a report by a Conservative think tank (reports are no-where near as in depth as a study) another is an op-ed by the same Romney advisor as before and the final is a paper by a George W. Bush advisor. We all remember what he did to the deficit.  So Mitt Romney is obviously going to have to cut lots of programs or he will send the deficit through the roof, but the only cut he has actually admitted to is that of PBS.

Tonight is a real opportunity for Obama to win support for him on the issue of the deficit. When Romney brings up the six reports, Obama must tell the American people that that is completely misleading. If Romney brings up the “doubled the deficit” line, remind him that he’s not debating George W. Bush. If he brings up the issue of jobs, Obama needs to remind Romney about the fact that there has been a net increase in jobs and unemployment is below 8%.

The facts are behind Obama on the issue of the deficit, he should not let any American forget this fact.

Biden Destroys Ryan in Only VP Debate

Last night the Vice President, Joe Biden, squared up against Congressman Paul Ryan in the only VP debate. For Biden this was an opportunity to begin the Democratic fight back following last week’s presidential debate. The debate was moderated by Martha Raddatz and it focused on foreign policy and the economy.

From Biden’s first reply to Ryan I knew this debate was going to be very different to last week. Biden wasn’t going to let Ryan get away with lies and half-truths. This is how it went:

Biden: “With all due respect that’s a bunch of malarkey.”#

Raddatz: “And why is that so?”

Biden: “Because not a single thing he said is accurate.”

It was a very strong start for Biden, certainly a lot better than Ryan.

The general feel of the debate on Twitter

Foreign policy is, of course, a strong point for the Obama administration, so the debate focusing on that area was a natural advantage for Biden. The debate mostly covered the Middle East as Libya, Syria, Israel, Iran and Afghanistan were all discussed. For many the weakest moment of the debate for Ryan was when he discussed Afghanistan at the end. Ryan said that it was a disgrace that the Obama campaign had pulled 22,000 US troops out of the most dangerous provinces. This meant (according to him) fewer men doing the same job, endangering those left. Biden’s retort to Ryan was brilliant, as all US troops pulled out were replaced with Afghans. The following course saw Ryan flailing.

Ryan: We don’t want to send fewer people to the [east]…

Biden: That’s why we should send Americans in to do the job, instead of the – you’d rather Americans be going in doing the job instead of the trainees?

Ryan: No. We are already sending Americans to do the job, but fewer of them. That’s the whole problem.

Biden: That’s right. We’re sending in more Afghans to do the job, Afghans to do the job.

Ryan also got tied up over Syria and Iran. Although he blasted the current administration for how it’s dealing with both countries, he didn’t seem to have a remotely different policy when it came to Syria. On Iran all he called for as tougher sanctions without suggesting how much tighter they could be.

Biden also performed strongly on the economy, this is supposed to be Ryan’s strong point and he totally underperformed. One of Ryan’s biggest problems for Ryan is his inability to tell the truth or be specific. He says that the Romney-Ryan plan would help create 12 million jobs, yet he never specified how. He claims that six reports back up Romney’s tax plan. That is simply not true.

The issue of Medicare was brought up, much to Biden’s delight. Biden went on the offensive, claiming a Romney presidency would destroy the “guarantee of medicare” by turning it into a voucher scheme. This is an argument on which the Democrats really do have the advantage, even a majority of registered Republicans favour keeping medicare as it is, rather than privatising it. At one point Biden looked straight at the camera and said “Folks, follow your instincts.” in terms of who to trust with medicare.

The next debate will take place on Tuesday and will be between President Obama and Mitt Romney. Unfortunately this will make it difficult to measure the direct impact of the VP debate; it’s certainly far too early to tell but pay attention over the next few days. As the debate started Obama and Romney were basically neck-and-neck in the polls, according to HuffPost averages Obama’s lead was a mere 0.2%. Instant polls showed that the public felt that Biden won the debate, but more important are the undecided voters. By huge margins they believed that Biden put up the stronger performance. What affect it has will be difficult to measure, but it almost certainly will have a measurable impact. 

One of the more meme-worthy moments in the debate

Biden-Ryan Debate, What to Expect

Last week when Mitt Romney ‘won’ the Presidential Debate, everyone knew that the polls were going to shift, the question was: by how much? For the first time since May of this year, Mitt Romney has gone ahead of Obama according the Huffington Post’s poll averages. According to it Romney led Obama by a miniscule 0.1% for a few hours, although this lead is extremely small it has psychological significance. Before the debate began, the Romney campaign was viewed as possibly being dead in the water, that the debate was the last thing that could save Romney from collapse. It was predicted that even if Romney did slightly better than Obama, the campaign would be over. Fortunately for Mitt Romney, the public perceive that he won the debate by a huge 2:1 margin! Not only has Romney kept his campaign alive, his dreams of moving to the White House are now a real possibility!

This means that there is a huge amount of pressure on Joe Biden for his debate tonight; it will take place eight days after Obama’s defeat. Although it will not be as widely watched as the presidential debate, it is an opportunity for the Democrats to begin fighting back. The type of attacks that Biden will receive will likely be similar to the ones that Romney used against Obama. Biden should learn from how Obama handled his opponent’s attacks and craft a better response. Biden also has one big advantage over Obama; he can use last week’s excellent job report to back him up. For many Democrats, Obama was too polite (a point made by Obama himself in an interview with ABC) and he let Romney get away with blatant lies. If Ryan repeats Romney’s “Obama doubled the deficit”, Biden should come down on him like a ton of bricks! It is simply not true, by any way shape or form.

One point that Ryan will likely attempt to make is that the Obama campaign is trying to distract the American people from the economy. One example he may give is the attention the Democrats have paid to Romney’s promise the cut the subsidy to PBS during the last debate. Biden can easily retaliate to this point as it is the only cut to the budget that Romney has specified, other than repealing Obamacare which, according to the independent CBO, would actually add $109 billion to the deficit. 

Another point that Biden can use to attack Ryan is Romney’s promise to sky-rocket spending on the military, giving the Pentagon more money than they’ve asked for. Foreign policy is certainly an area on which the Democrats should be campaigning on, a recent Gallup poll showed the public trusting the Democrats more with foreign policy matters than the GOP. It is also the only area in which Obama’s approval rating has always been higher than his disapproval rating (according to HuffPost averages). Biden should also point out the Republican ticket’s warmongering, Romney has sometimes mentioned how he would support Israel if it bombed Iran. The Republicans as a whole, including Ryan, have often criticised Obama for “destroying America’s reputation abroad”, this is not founded on fact; America’s closest allies have  a far higher approval of the US now that Obama is in charge over George W. Bush.

Joe Biden

Something Biden should really attack Ryan for is his budget. The extreme budget which cuts help for the poor, privatises the highly popular medicare and cuts taxes for the wealthy. Best of all it doesn’t even reduce the deficit, although Ryan claims that it will. When Ryan made the budget proposal he said his budget would slash the deficit, to prove this he had the numbers run by The Heritage Foundation.  This is the same organisation that said that George W. Bush’s budgets would slash the deficit, the reality was that the budgets turned a $200 billion budget surplus into a $1.2 trillion budget deficit. Yeah I don’t think the American people will trust anything that comes out of their mouths, as long as they are well informed.

Paul Ryan

A lot of the media speculation in recent weeks was that Ryan would be the better debater than Biden, after all Ryan is a member of congress and has to frequently take part in debates or debate like events. What people seem to forget is Biden’s ability to connect with the ordinary person, when he speaks people feel that he is sincere. This is quite the opposite for Ryan, one of the only things people remember from the RNC is just how shockingly dishonest Ryan was in his acceptance speech, even FOX accused him of lying! Biden is also one of Congress’ longest serving Senators, he was Senator for Delaware from 1973 until he was sworn in as Vice-President in 2009.

This debate is vital for both campaigns, if Ryan wins then the White House is truly within reach. If Biden wins, then the Obama campaign will have a new spurt of life. Whatever the outcome, this could prove the most important vice-presidential debate in a long time. 

Syria, the Never-ending Problem

There has been one major area of policy that Romney has largely ignored in the current presidential election and that is foreign policy. Anytime he does attempt to draw a position, it turns into a major gaffe; during his overseas trip in July he managed to insult the British, Arabs and Polish. More recently he politicised the death of US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, before he even knew the facts and he failed to mention the war in Afghanistan during his acceptance speech at the RNC last month. Now Romney is attempting to weigh in on the Syrian crisis as the battle is getting increasingly bloody. It is also important to note that Romney views Syria as a way to get at Iran, Syria is one of Iran's closest allies; he believes depriving Iran of another ally would be extremely bad for President Ahmadinejad. In extracts from a speech he will make later today Romney says:

“Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran – rather than sitting on the sidelines.”

Romney believes that America should arm the rebels, not just with small arms, but with heavy weapons that could take out tanks and helicopters. Do you remember when America armed rebels in Afghanistan? Do you also remember when some of those rebels used their American training to carry out 9/11? This is an extremely risky strategy, although I do believe that the vast majority of the Syrian rebels are genuinely trying to overthrow a dictatorial regime, islamists from across the Arab world are seeing Syria as a possible training site for a future generation of jihadists.

There are also fears that the Syrian conflict could spill over into some of its more unstable neighbours; Iraq and Lebanon and maybe destabilise Jordan as well. The chances of a Turkish invasion of Syria are looking increasingly likely; Syria has already shot down Turkish fighter jets and launched missiles into Turkish villages killing hundreds. Syria has abandoned the Kurdish area of its country; Turkey fears that in doing so it will become a training ground for Kurdish rebels who will attack Turkey. Just a few days ago the Turkish parliament voted to allow moving Turkish forces into Syria if it was provoked, sending a clear message to Damascus that it must stop attacking Turks.

With the international community totally paralysed thanks to the actions of Russia and China it is difficult to see what the West should do next. Maybe Mitt Romney’s idea is the right thing to do, although history suggests that we may get more than we wish for. 

Round 1: Romney vs Obama

Last night Obama and Romney faced each other in Denver, Colorado in the first of three presidential debates. The debate was supposed to take 90 minutes, it was split into six segments, three concentrated on the economy and one on each of the topics; healthcare, role of government and governing. Romney knew he needed to out-perform Obama to keep his campaign alive, in recent weeks Obama’s lead has been widening both nationally and in the swing states, especially in Ohio and Wisconsin. Pundits from across the political spectrum were predicting if Obama were to win or simply “tie” with Romney, then the Republicans would certainly lose the White House. Going into the debates polls showed, 2:1, that Obama would perform better. They were wrong. I was wrong. Although I do not believe that Romney completely trashed the president, he definitely performed better. Obama was on the defence the whole night, with few exceptions, he rarely made any attacks on Romney and paused a lot more in speaking.  As the debate only took place last night the polls have yet to come in with the new results, but needless to say that things will be looking up for the Romney campaign. This is the first piece of good news they’ve had since Obama said “you didn’t build that”.

Yet all is not lost for Obama, throughout the debate Romney left himself open to many attacks. Especially on the issue of healthcare, within seconds of vilifying Obamacare, he was praising his work on healthcare reform in Massachusetts as governor, bearing in mind that Obamacare is a less extreme version of Romneycare, it is shocking Obama didn’t go on the offense. Romney was creating quite a buzz on Twitter when fact checkers consistently struck down many of Romney’s key points and backed Obama. Here’s a selection of Romney’s lies from last night.

1.       I will not cut education

2.       I will not raise taxes on the middle class

3.       Obama will raise taxes on the middle class

4.       I will not add to the deficit (if he genuinely believes this he needs to re-take some Maths exams)

5.       I will not cut taxes for the rich

6.       Obama has raised taxes on the middle class during his time in office

7.       Obamacare will increase the cost of premiums

8.       Obama will destroy medicare

9.       Obama’s medicare cuts directly affect seniors.

I’ve saved the most audacious for last.

10.    Obama has doubled the deficit.

This last point is simply shocking. There are two types of government deficit, a budget deficit is the gap between revenue and spending each year, and the overall deficit, which is how much the government owes in total. Let me break this down into on very simple table.

	What Obama inherited	What he increased it by	What it currently is
Budget deficit	$1.2 trillion	X 1.167	$1.4 trillion
Overall deficit	$12 trillion	X 1.167	$14 trillion

  

The fact is that overall debt is increasing at its slowest rate since before Ronald Reagan became president in 1980. And let’s not forget that Bush actually inherited a budget surplus of $230 billion, is it really time to trust a Republican on the economy again? Especially when that Republican is pursuing the same policies as the old one!

The fact of the matter is that if Obama had been on his toes and been more aggressive, he would have easily won the debate. I feel bad as Obama is usually a very good public speaker, he just seemed to stumble on the worst of all possible nights.  He must learn from this debate, or he could actually lose the White House in November.  

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.

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.

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.