Barack obama

Thursday

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 – Barack Obama’s hollow victory and remodernising the Tories

Is there something underwhelming about Obama’s reelection? In this week’s cover feature, John O’Sullivan discusses impact of changing demographics of the America electorate and the challenges this poses for the Republicans in 2016. On the latest View from 22 podcast, the Spectator’s assistant editor Freddy Gray and political editor James Forsyth explain why the American right needs to rediscover its purpose: ‘I think eight years ago there was a lot of talk of ‘values voters’ and how Karl Rove had pulled off this amazing masterstroke talking about the culture of life without scaring off people who might be worried about being anti-abortion. But I think that now seems incredibly out

Wednesday

Alex Massie

The View from the Cocoon of Denial and Epistemic Closure – Spectator Blogs

William F Buckley has, alas, gone the way of all flesh but his National Review lives on and arguably remains the flagship journal of contemporary American conservatism. It certainly considers itself such. As the Republican inquest into last night’s election disaster begins, National Review offers a useful – and perhaps telling – glimpse into the contemporary conservative soul (American edition). Here’s what its contributors have been writing today: Mary Matalin: What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform. Instead of using his high office to articulate a vision for our future, Obama

Steerpike Steerpike

Oh say can you see, MPs on a jolly

Team Cameron, as my colleague James Forysth points out, are rather pleased with Obama’s victory. Downing Street’s finest have been pushing the idea that Barack Obama’s victory speech echoed, word for word, Cameron’s constant refrain that ‘we are all in this together’ and that the ‘inherited economic mess’ is slowly being overcome. Dave the Statesman, don’t you know? Obama has his admirers on the Opposition benches, as we know. The Labour Party was out in force at the two biggest victory bashes in central London last night: CNN’s opulent shindig at One Mayfair and the tackier affair at the US Embassy. I spotted Mr and Mrs Harriet Harman, Chris Bryant

John Osullivan

Barack Obama’s new ethnic majority

‘I’ve come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,’ said President Obama at an emotional ‘last ever’ campaign meeting. ‘Because this is where our movement for change began, right here. Right here.’ And his eyes briefly moistened. The nostalgia was doubtless sincere, and the address correct, but it was misleading to describe his 2012 election campaign as a continuation of his earlier ‘movement for change’. In reality, it has been a smoothly ruthless operation to distract attention from a record that has been disappointingly bereft of change. He triumphed over himself as much as over the hapless Mitt Romney. Until it produced a glossy economic leaflet

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama’s victory is a great solace to Cameron, and No.10 will exploit it to the full

Four years ago, in opposition, the Cameron offices were a swing state in the US election. Most were for Obama but there was still a sizable number who held a torch for John McCain. But this time round it is hard to think of anyone in Downing Street who wanted a Romney win. I asked several people in No. 10 who would have voted for Romney, but only one name ever came up. The idea of a Tory Downing Street urging on a Democratic President would come as a shock to those who served in the Thatcher and Major governments. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had common

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

US election 2012: Obama’s victory is a relief for David Cameron

David Cameron welcomed Barack Obama’s re-election in the early hours of this morning, tweeting: ‘Warm congratulations to my friend @BarackObama. Look forward to continuing to work together.’ He later released this statement: ‘I would like to congratulate Barack Obama on his re-election. I have really enjoyed working with him over the last few years and I look forward to working with him again over the next four years. There are so many things that we need to do: we need to kick start the world economy and I want to see an EU-US trade deal. Right here in Jordan I am hearing appalling stories about what has happened inside Syria

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Obama keeps that hopey-changey thing going in victory speech

Even though Obama’s victory speech in Chicago was far less hopey-changey than his rockstar delivery four years ago, the re-elected president did still manage to sound a little as though he was delivering an address at a wedding, smoothing over the ugly bits and telling America that ‘the best is yet to come’. Both he and Mitt Romney made calls for co-operation between Republicans and Democrats, with Obama saying: ‘Tonight, you voted for action, not politics as usual. You elected us to focus on your jobs, not ours, and in the coming weeks and months I am looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders of both parties to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

US election 2012: Obama’s re-election

In the end, Barack Obama won re-election comfortably. The Obama political team again demonstrated its ability to get the vote out where it needed it. The margin might have been narrower than in 2004. But it was, in purely operational terms, a more impressive victory; triumphing against the backdrop of a still stuttering economy. For the Republicans, there’s much to reflect on. The party’s demographic problems are now too serious to ignore. In 2004, Bush won 41% or 44% of the Hispanic vote—depending on which pollster you want to use. But this time, Obama won 72% of Hispanics. Given that Hispanics are the fastest growing group in the US electorate,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Barack Obama is Re-Elected President of the United States – Spectator Blogs

Well, I was wrong. I thought Mitt Romney might do rather better than it seems he has. As I type this CNN has just called Ohio for Barack Obama, confirming that the President will be re-elected to serve a second term as President of the United States. It looks as though Nate Silver’s projections are off too: with Obama looking likely to win Virginia and Florida it seems as though the President will do better – at least in terms of the Electoral College – than even the much-criticised Mr Silver predicted. Add a series of crushing blows to the GOP in Senate races from Massachusetts to Missouri and you

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Presidential Predictions: Barack Obama 294 Mitt Romney 244 – Spectator Blogs

Asked my prediction a few days ago, I looked at all the possibilities and plumped for Obama 294, Romney 244. This is tediously in the middle of the general range of possible outcomes and therefore not the kind of wild-assed, long-shot punt anyone can occasionally ride to more fame than they merit. Sometimes even lousy gamblers or poker players get lucky. Anyway: I think Barack Obama will lose Indiana , North Carolina, Colorado and Florida to Mitt Romney but hang on in New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia and Ohio. That would leave this map, drawn from the excellent 270 To Win. Like the rest of us, I’m guessing here. But

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Barack Obama Deserves A Second Term – Spectator Blogs

No matter the result of today’s Presidential election, it will not be Morning in America tomorrow. Of course the successful candidate will talk of America’s essential greatness. He will promise a fresh era of co-operation and respect in Washington (this time for real). Hope will be on the agenda and perhaps, if the final polls of this poll-driven election are mistaken, change will be too. But neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney are well-positioned to deliver either hope or change. This has not been a happy campaign in a happy country and, regardless of the result, there will be no fresh political dawn tomorrow. The path ahead is tough and

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

US elections 2012: God Bless Negativity

Today, says American political journalist Michael Brendan Dougherty, ‘120 million Americans will choose who they don’t want to be president.’ Exactly — for all Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s upbeat noise over the last few days, the 2012 US presidential elections have been motivated, entirely, by fear and loathing. The key questions: Are you so fed up with Barack Obama that you can bring yourself to vote for Romney? Or do you hate the Republicans enough to vote for Obama? With all its attack ads and its mudslinging, this election has been negative populism from the start. It’s not liberalism vs conservatism; it’s anti-liberalism vs anti-conservatism. Let’s not be pious,

Monday

Douglas Murray

Why I would vote for Mitt Romney

What is the role of a commentator in an election in which he or she cannot vote? And how would I vote tomorrow if I could? The response of many British journalists to the American elections is to do one of several things. These include becoming either a mystical seer or a partisan hack. The former have been doing particularly well in this election. People with no notable back catalogue of work on the US keep popping up writing, ‘Why Romney cannot win unless he does X’ pieces, or ‘Why Obama has it in the bag if he does Y’, etc. Few of these seers know what they are talking

Jonathan Jones

Sorry, but Barack Obama’s clearly ahead

Four years ago, on the weekend before the 2008 presidential election, political commentator John McLaughlin asked the four panellists on his show The McLaughlin Group to predict the winner. As Nate Silver says in his excellent book The Signal and the Noise, ‘That one ought not to have required very much thought.’ The polls indicated that Barack Obama was the strong favourite to beat John McCain. For McCain to win, the polls would’ve had to be heavily biased towards Obama — something for which there was no evidence. But of the four panellists, only one — Eleanor Clift — predicted what was clearly the most likely outcome. Monica Crowley predicted

Friday

Douglas Murray

Sandy exposes another difference between the US and the UK

Differences between the US and the UK are often commented upon. But the storm ‘Sandy’ this week has highlighted one in particular. It is no criticism of either President Obama or Governor Romney to say that it seems strange to me to see them hugging and otherwise comforting people who have lost their homes and in some cases all their possessions. I keep testing – and then mentally blocking – the images of a similar thing happening here. I am trying to imagine my mental state had my house and few possessions been washed away only to see, emerging from the mist, the figure of Gordon Brown. He would be

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Mitt Romney is closer than ever to the presidency

The presidential debates are over, and Mitt Romney is within touching distance of the White House. Barack Obama was the better candidate – just – in last night’s third and final presidential debate, on the attack and with his trademark eloquence restored. But he needed to deliver a knockout blow to Mitt Romney, and failed. Everyone knows Obama is great with words. What is not entirely clear to voters is that Mitt Romney isn’t evil. As it turned out, Romney came across as moderate, articulate and well-informed- and a plausible commander-in-chief. The next election may very well be his. A snap CNN Poll called it 48-40 for Obama, wider than

Tim Wigmore

Barack Obama tells Mitt Romney: ‘We have fewer horses and bayonets’

Whoever wins the US presidency on 6 November will owe little of their success to foreign policy. A recent poll showed that 46 per cent of the electorate regards the economy as the most important issue of the election; just 6 per cent chose foreign policy. The tightness of this race meant that the foreign policy debate still had the potential to influence matters, but a stilted format contributed to a rather stale exchange last night. Barack Obama produced a more compelling performance, but when he wakes up it will not be to the sort of collective mood shift Mitt Romney enjoyed after the Denver debate. The essence of this campaign remains

Thursday

Douglas Murray

The fall of Barack Obama

I have a piece in this week’s magazine on the fall of Barack Obama. I’m not saying he may not still win, just that even if he does he will be a diminished President. It’s available online here.

Sebastian Payne

The View from 22 — Obama in free fall, an EU referendum promise, Andrew Mitchell and Tory strategies

Has Barack Obama rediscovered his magic powers just in time to take him back to the White House? In this week’s magazine cover, Harold Evans writes that the 2012 election has been disastrous for the Democratic Party but incumbent president has may have woken up just in time. On this week’s View from 22 podcast, two Spectator writers discuss whether Obama is on track to win the approaching election. Contributing Editor Douglas Murray thinks he will, albeit reluctantly: ‘Most people go on sense of some kind. My sense is that Obama will probably just scrape back in but my hope is that he doesn’t. Apart from anything else — I think that so