Us politics

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Democrats pull ahead in key US Senate races

When I looked at the battle for the United States Senate back in July, I said it’d be tough for the Democrats to retain control. But since then — and particularly since the party conventions — things have begun to look up for their candidates in a number of key races. In Missouri, where incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill is vulnerable, the Republicans nominated their least electable option from a close three-way primary. Congressman Todd Akin is firmly on the Tea Party wing of the GOP, and didn’t help himself with his comments about ‘legitimate rape’. It therefore looks like McCaskill may scrape her way to re-election: despite poor approval ratings,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Mitt Romney attacks ‘victim’ Obama voters

A secret recording of Mitt Romney talking to donors has been released by Mother Jones, a left-wing American magazine, and even to his wellwishers (myself included) it sounds dreadful. He declares that 47 per cent of Americans are ‘dependent’ on government and regard themselves as ‘victims’. ‘There are 47 per cent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement.

Thursday

Douglas Murray

General Dempsey’s disastrous intervention

When the Danish Cartoons affair broke in 2005-6 there was considerable pressure on the Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to issue a condemnation and apology. Demonstrating considerable statesmanship he nevertheless repeatedly said that ‘You cannot apologise for something you have not done.’ When so-called ‘community leaders’ insisted on seeing him he refused because he, as the Prime Minister, was not responsible for the contents of a Danish newspaper. The Danish press is not only free, but separate, from the Danish government. Rasmussen’s belief was that the sooner anybody who was unaware of this became aware of it the better. Fast forward to 2012 and we seem to have yet

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Is Mitt Romney Doomed Already? – Spectator Blogs

Put it this way: Mitt Romney’s route to the White House is perilously thin. He has little margin for error. Recent polls suggest Barack Obama has benefited from the Democratic convention much more than Romney was helped by the Republican party’s gathering in Florida. As always, it is worth recalling that polling advantages in late August or even early to mid September are rarely dispositive. Of course Romney can still win but that’s hardly the same as thinking he’s likely to. The map at the top of this post – compiled at 270 To Win – shows how Romney could squeak an electoral college tie and send the election to

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Obama wins the convention season

In America, the convention duel is over and there can now be little doubt that Barack Obama won it. Whereas Mitt Romney saw only a very modest boost in his polling numbers during the Republican convention, Obama has received a much bigger bounce, not only wiping out any advantage Romney gained the previous week, but actually leaving him with a bigger lead than he’d enjoyed before. On both Gallup and Rasmussen’s national tracking polls, he now enjoys a commanding five-point lead. And that could well continue to grow: the Gallup number still includes responses from before the Democratic convention even began. Nate Silver’s forecasting model  now gives Obama an 80.7 per

Wednesday

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Obama’s bitterly conservative campaign

Republicans like to say that Barack Obama’s 2008 slogan ‘Hope’ has been replaced by ‘Fear’. And they are right. If you listen to Obama and his campaign paladins, you might think that Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee is itching to take away your Medicare and break the sacred American promise of Social Security. Hell, a Romney presidency means you are more likely to get cancer. Or if you are a woman, you’ll probably die due to complications from an illegal back-street abortion. Everything will be lame again, like the 1950s. Vote Obama, or else. At the Democratic convention this week, President Obama will tell his supporters that he still believes

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Democrats mull the 2016 race to succeed Barack Obama

US party conventions aren’t just about that year’s elections. Sure, the biggest speeches are from the Presidential nominees, their spouses and their running mates — but plenty of others take to the podiums as well. And while the content of their remarks may be all about beating the other guys in November, a fair few will have an eye on grabbing the nomination themselves next time around. If you doubt the power of a big convention speech, just look back to Obama’s keynote address in 2004, which catapulted the then-state senator into national stardom and towards the presidency. Indeed, perhaps the most significant feature of last week’s Republican convention was

Monday

Alex Massie

New, Improved, Human, Mitt Romney Still Faces Demographic Difficulties – Spectator Blogs

Traditionally – that is, for the last 50 or so years – Labor Day is considered the “official” start of the Presidential campaign. Since Labor Day is today t’s OK to pay attention now. The Democrats meet in Charlotte, North Carolina for their convention this week of which, I suppose, more later. I wrote a column on Romneypalooza in Tampa for the Scotsman. Here’s the guts of it: No-one will ever be inspired by Romney, but the convention did its best to present him as a real-life, honest-to-goodness actual human being. This unpromising project was more successful than seemed plausible before the convention began. The week’s most moving moment came

Saturday

David Blackburn

Karl Rove’s a believer

I’m indebted to John Rentoul for drawing my attention to this report of a talk given by Karl Rove to mega donors at the Republican National Convention. Rove is an advisor to American Crossroads, a Republican fundraising organisation; and, having been one of Dubya’s chiefs, he remains a vital strategic voice in the party. He explained how Mitt Romney might win: “’The people we’ve got to win in this election, by and large, voted for Barack Obama,’ Rove said, in a soothing, professorial tone, explaining why the campaign hadn’t launched more pointed attacks on the president’s character. ‘If you say he’s a socialist, they’ll go to defend him. If you

Friday

Tim Wigmore

How the forecasters could fail for the 2012 presidential election

The really curious thing about this year’s US presidential election is that it looks set to defy all political forecasts. While the most respected political science models have predicted victory for Mitt Romney, polls have consistently suggested otherwise. Political science and predictive models seldom receive much attention in the UK but they enjoy a strong tradition in the US. And they normally get it right. Most spectacularly, the University of Colorado’s forecasting model in 2000 successfully predicted that Al Gore would win the popular vote but lose the electoral college. Since its inception in 1980, the University of Colorado’s forecasting model has successfully predicted the results of the last eight

Alex Massie Alex Massie

American Exceptionalism: The Baloney and the Glory – Spectator Blogs

I’m writing a column about Mitt Romney for tomorrow’s Scotsman so more on him later. Suffice it to say that I thought his speech less impressive than it had to be but that, by the end of the evening, I was more impressed with and by Mitt the Man than I’ve been previously. This was because of the Mormons. Magic underpants and Missouri and all the rest of it be damned, Mitt should talk about his religion more. He may be reluctant to do so and that speaks well of him but this is an election and Mormonism is about the only thing discovered thus far that transforms Romney from

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Clint Eastwood: Dada Maestro and Republican Superstar – Spectator Blogs

To hell with Mitt Romney. He can wait. The star of last night’s Republican extravaganza in the god-forsaken city of Tampa was Clint Eastwood. With the help of an empty chair he gave one of the finest performances of his career. It was magnificent [sic] and certainly worth more than Million Dollar Baby. It’s only ten or so minutes so I recommend you watch it in all its awful glory. As I said on Twitter it was like watching the father of the bride make a speech at a wedding at which he dislikes the groom and does not recognise his daughter. It’s all a little sad really.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Condi Rice gave a great speech. She still won’t be a contender. – Spectator Blogs

It’s no surprise that John McCain gave a shriveled, bitter, small speech at the Republican convention during which he inadvertently confirmed that the electorate – boobs, nitwits, rubes and all – were quite right to deny him the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. More war, all war, war everywhere was, alas, all McCain had to say. He is a man diminished in every way and it is a sad business to see him so. More surprising – and pleasingly so – was Condoleezza Rice’s return to form. She gave the best speech of the convention thus far. That this may be a low bar does not mean it’s not one

Tim Wigmore

McCain sounds his age, not like an elder statesman

John McCain cut rather a sad sight last night as he addressed the Republican National Convention on his 76th birthday. Four years ago, he would have envisaged spending the convention stepping up his campaign for a second presidential term. Now, he was reduced to a speech that attracted only polite interest from delegates, who were far more enthused by the offerings from Rand Paul and Paul Ryan. Few people are consigned to history more rapidly than nominees who lost a presidential election: none since Nixon, with his almost unique powers of resilience, have later campaigned seriously to reclaim the nomination. At times it felt as though the only applause McCain

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Paul Ryan and the Audacity of Seriousness – Spectator Blogs

If Paul Ryan looked and sounded like the tyro lawyer in a John Grisham movie delivering his first big courtroom speech then that’s because, in a way, he was just that kind of rookie performing upon the biggest stage of his life. Happily he had Matt Scully on his team so there was reason to think Ran’s speech would be well-crafted at least. And it was. Scully put lipstick on Sarah Palin four years ago, writing a speech that hoodwinked us all for a time. He had a hefty hand in Ryan’s too. Not that Ryan is another Palin, you understand. Even so striking the correct balance between substance and

Wednesday

Ryan Bourne

A Paul Ryan reader

Ever since Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan as his running mate, the UK media has raced to portray him as a fiscal Sarah Palin and suggest that he advocates extremist policies. If anyone wants to find out for themselves, and learn about his policies and ideas, where do they start? Here is an introduction to one of the most interesting and intellectually substantial figures in American politics. Background Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan said a lot about the direction of the Presidential election campaign. It disappointed conservatives who wanted Romney to select a VP candidate based on identity politics, or to keep the campaign a referendum on Obama. But it was a triumph for those of us

Tim Wigmore

How Artur Davis can really help Mitt Romney

‘The last time I spoke at a convention, it turned out I was in the wrong place.’ Artur Davis spoke last night at what he now believes is the right venue for him: the Republican National Convention. It did not take him long to reconcile himself to Republicans angry that they were welcoming a man who had provided the official second in favour of Barack Obama’s candidacy at the Democratic Convention four years ago. Davis has a most unusual personal story. Like most African Americans, he had been a Democrat all his life, and served in the House of Representatives for eight years until 2011. In 2010, he campaigned, unsuccessfully,

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Rape is rape and abortion is abortion. Except when they’re not. – Spectator Blogs

Way back in my debating days at Trinity College, Dublin we knew you could guarantee large crowds and impressively  – that is, pleasingly – bad-tempered debates twice a year. These were the annual debates on Northern Ireland and abortion. And they really were annual fixtures during which, for years on end, the same arguments were deployed with the same passion and no-one’s views were ever changed by anything they heard. In those days it was usually pretty clear who the bad guys were too. In the case of abortion it was anyone speaking as a representative of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child or, more generally, anyone

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Six to watch at the Republican Convention

The Republican National Convention is properly underway today*, where Mitt Romney will try to introduce himself to an America that still doesn’t really know him. The race is close: Romney leads 47-46 in a Gallup poll. Both sides have been spewing out attack ads, which seem to be working: not for 20 years have both the president and challenger had such dire approval ratings. Not many Brits will stay up to 3.30am to watch all this, but we’ll be keeping you fully briefed here on Coffee House. Here are the six people that we have our eye on: Anne Romney (Speaking today): She’s auditioning for first lady, and hasn’t been

Wednesday

George Chamier

George Washington: Gentleman warrior

It is easy to forget that the dignified eighteenth-century gentleman whose image appears on the one-dollar bill, the first President and father of his nation, owed his position entirely to his prowess as a soldier. Stephen Brumwell’s book charts the two phases of his military career, firstly fighting for King George II, then fighting against King George III. George Washington was born into a landowning family in Virginia and was expected to become a gentleman planter like his forebears. But the appeal of adventure on the frontier drew him to enlist – with no formal military training ‒ as a militia officer. Five years of tough campaigning followed, defending the