A week: A long time in stormy US politics
A week on the US campaign trail – and a week in the wake of hurricane Sandy, so what have I seen? Above and beyond all, the power of nature and the evident hand of man in the consequences of that power.
America’s northeast coast will never be quite the same again. Above all, more than 100 have died together with almost 70 in the Caribbean where Sandy hit first. On the ground, there is infrastructure that will take painful winter months to restore. There are subway stations in New York that will take months to rebuild. Seawalls that will have to be re-positioned. Homes that will, perhaps, never be rebuilt. Factories that will perhaps never re-open. Even if climate change deniers are right – and the majority of the world’s scientists think they are not – man’s decision to place populations where they are have proved wrong.
Politically, the hurricane tore a hole in Mitt Romney’s campaign, diverted President Obama’s attention, but reignited both campaigns after a dull autumn. Obama looked presidential in his handling of the crisis and, in hugging victims, reconnected with some of the emotions he had triggered in 2008. Romney grappled with the unexpected bond forged between the Republican governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, and Barack Obama. Christie is a formidable potential challenger for the presidency. His appearance at this moment in the campaign was unhelpful to Romney
The message
Obama’s messages never change – “ I’m clearing up Bush’s financial and warrior messes; give me time; the economy is coming right,” etc.
But even this week we have seen several different ‘Candidate Romneys.’ One makes wholesale assaults on Obama’s record; the next talks of bi-partisanship and how only he can bring America together.
Romney was an effective liberal Republican governor of Massachusetts. Yet from time to time, depending on the nature of the audience in front of him, he has denied his achievements in that state. Consequently, no one really knows who he really is.
The war of lies and counter-lies
Given the state of unemployment in America and the overall state of the economy, a challenger should be enjoying a towering lead. For Romney, that is not the case. He might still win. The polls have it very slightly in favour of Obama. A new poll here in Ohio has Obama five points ahead. The decisive electoral college polling gives him a lead –the national poll has a dead heat.
What I have not mentioned is the most poisonous TV advertising I have ever seen in any country on earth. Both sides have spent hundreds of millions in this war of lies and counter- lies. That money has belched into both campaigns from interested commercial parties. The US Supreme Court ruled that a “corporation” has the rights of an “individual” and could therefore spend this sort of money, saying these things, under the constitutional protection of freedom of speech. That ruling has resulted in this nightly splash and counter-splash of political garbage, and America is the more divided for it.
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