Us politics

Thursday

Freddy Gray

McCain’s on the warpath (again)

Senator John McCain was on the radio again this morning, urging us to intervene on behalf of Syria’s rebels. ‘It’s not a fair fight,’ he said, as if that were a good reason to wade in. McCain, a former prisoner of war, is to humanitarian intervention what Mother Teresa was to helping the sick. He never misses a chance to promote a good scrap in the name of freedom and democracy. He cheered on western involvement in the wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. In McCain’s worldview, there is no conflict or international problem which cannot be solved by the application of American military power. When running for president in 2008, he

Wednesday

Nicole Hemmer

Like father, like son? | 7 March 2012

Given all the buzz around Super Tuesday, we thought CoffeeHousers might care to read this piece from tomorrow’s edition of Spectator Australia, which compares Mitt Romney to his father George, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968: After a career as a business executive, a handsome Mormon becomes the Republican governor of a Democratic state, then runs for President. He gets a reputation for flip-flopping and, as a moderate, has an uneasy relationship with the party’s conservative base. It’s a pretty specific biography, yet it describes to a tee two men: Mitt Romney, one of the leading contenders for the GOP nomination, and his father George, who sought

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Republican ‘negativity’ has improved Romney’s campaign

In the wake of Super Tuesday, lots of British journalists are saying that the Republican nomination race has been too ‘negative’ — i.e. the candidates have attacked each other too much ahead of the real contest in November. Mitt Romney may now be close to victory but he’s been badly damaged. This is thought to be an indication that American conservatism is tearing itself apart. But that isn’t necessarily right. Nobody thought that the Democratic party was in decline when Hillary Clinton and Obama were at each other’s throats in 2008. Hillary, if you remember, even flirted with racist tactics in an attempt to derail her rival. And yet the

Jonathan Jones

Obama wins Super Tuesday

It wasn’t a great night for Mitt Romney — but it wasn’t a particularly bad one either. He won by big margins in the four states he was supposed to: Massachussetts, Vermont, Virginia and Idaho. He also won Alaska by a four-point margin and managed to beat Rick Santorum by just one point in Ohio. The fact that he finished way behind Newt Gingrich in Georgia was no surprise, nor was his losing to Santorum in Oklahoma. He could have done with better results in North Dakota (third, 16 points behind Santorum and 4 behind Ron Paul) and Tennessee (second, 9 points behind Santorum), but six wins from ten states

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

A super Tuesday in store for Romney

After regaining the momentum with victories in Michigan and Arizona last week — and another in Washington State at the weekend — Mitt Romney looks set to enjoy a pretty good Super Tuesday. He’s very unlikely to win all ten states voting today, but will probably substantially strengthen his position in the all-important delegate race nonetheless. Much of the focus has been on the two biggest states: Georgia and Ohio. Georgia should provide Newt Gingrich with a much-needed and fairly comfortable victory — it is the state he represented in Congress, after all, and he’s focused a lot of his efforts there. The polls suggest a 20-point or so win

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Will Democrats decide the result of Michigan’s Republican primary?

Tonight’s another very important night for the Republican presidential hopefuls, with primaries in Arizona and Michigan. Mitt Romney seems assured of a decent win in the former, where the latest two polls put him 16-17 points ahead of Rick Santorum. But Michigan is looking incredibly close — with the poll results of the last two days ranging from a four-point lead for Romney to a five-point lead for Santorum. It could go either way: Nate Silver’s model gives Romney a 55 per cent chance of victory to Santorum’s 45 per cent chance. With the polls this narrow, it will all come down to who’s best at getting their voters out

Friday

Jonathan Jones

Romney’s little helper

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgNJBdTaKE8 The Republican primary is dragging on longer than Mitt Romney had hoped — and it’s hurting him. His poll ratings have begun to plummet, and his war chest is feeling the pain too. In January, he spent a whopping $18.8m while raising just $6.5m. His campaign still has $7.7m ‘cash on hand’, but you don’t have to be Rain Man to see that even that won’t last long at this rate. Of course, multi-millionaire Romney could easily self-finance his campaign (as he did in 2008), but that isn’t a story that would make his candidacy look strong. Even so, Romney does still have more than enough to outspend his

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Obama breaks clear

The rejuvenation of Barack Obama’s re-election hopes continues apace. He’s added seven points to his approval rating since November, improving it from the low 40s to around 50 per cent now. After months of polling neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney, he now boasts a six point lead. Just four months ago, the bookies thought he was more likely to lose the election than win it. Now Intrade gives him a 60 per cent chance of victory. Nate Silver has a great article on Obama’s chances in this week’s New York Times Magazine. He’s built a model to forecast the election results based on the three most important factors at this stage:

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

Rombo vs Santorum

Having reclaimed the mantle of ‘Anti-Romney in Chief’, Rick Santorum is now surging in the polls. He’s moved into a narrow lead at the national level and – more importantly – looks likely to win two of the next big states on the primary calendar: Michigan and Ohio. Of course, that makes him the new target of Romney attack ads. Restore Our Future – the pro-Romney Super PAC – has already released a video slamming Santorum as a ‘big spender’ and ‘Washington insider’, which it will air in Michigan, Ohio and Arizona. A Romney advisor explained the strategy to Buzzfeed yesterday: ‘“Santorum’s a blank slate, so everyone’s projecting on to him what

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

How Obama’s new budget fits into the UK debate

Yesterday, Barack Obama set out his budget for ‘Fiscal Year 2013’ – that is, for the year beginning October 2012 (in the US, the fiscal year runs from October to September, rather than April to March as it does here). Of course, the federal budget has to be passed by both houses of Congress before being signed off by the President, so the final version will look very different to this one. It is better thought of as a statement of Obama’s intent, and his starting point for the negotiations between Congress and the White House. Nevertheless, it throws up a few interesting points, not least in how it relates to our own

Friday

Jonathan Jones

The Republican race is taking its toll on Romney

Rick Santorum’s surprise clean-sweep of three states on Tuesday certainly suggests that the battle for this year’s Republican nomination will go on a fair bit longer than looked likely after Mitt Romney’s win in Florida a week earlier. But it doesn’t change the fact that Romney will, most likely, emerge the winner. But where it once looked like he’d make a decent — if unexceptional — challenger to Obama in November, he’s starting to seem much less electable. Just look at the slide in his poll numbers. At the beginning of the year, a Washington Post poll found that 39 per cent of Americans had a positive view of Romney,

Wednesday

Peter Hoskin

Santorum shakes it up

Consult the soothsayers again, and rewrite the forecasts: the race for the Republican nomination has taken yet another turn. No-one much talked about Rick Santorum after he was retroactively awarded victory in January’s Iowa caucus, as most pundits’ attention had already moved on to Romney and Gingrich. But last night this disregarded politician triumphed in all three votes: the caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, and a primary in Missouri. The Colorado victory was a particular shock, given how easily Romney won there in 2008. Team Romney might be tempted to dismiss last night’s results, not least because the Missouri primary is ‘non-binding’ (the awarding of delegates will be determined at

Monday

Freddy Gray

Romney’s continuing religious troubles

Some well-informed people — Rupert Murdoch among them — have suggested that Mitt Romney could exploit Obama’s increasingly fractious relationship with America’s Catholics to win the presidential elections in November. The so-called ‘Catholic vote’ is often said to be the crucial swing factor in American democracy. Romney, however, may be facing a bigger socio-religious stumbling block than Obama’s: evangelicals. They don’t like him. Mainstream Protestant Republicans in the north have plumped for Mitt, generally speaking, but he has been far less successful in the evangelical south. ‘As a county’s evangelical population expands,’ says Real Clear Politics analyst Sean Trende, ‘Romney’s vote share declines.’ The obvious explanation is that southern Baptists

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

Romney gives Gingrich a ‘shellacking’ in Florida

‘A double-digit shellacking’. That’s how Gingrich endorser Herman Cain described Mitt Romney’s 14-point win over Newt Gingrich in last night’s Florida primary. It has certainly helped Romney get over the drubbing Gingrich gave him in South Carolina ten days ago, and recertifies him as the presumptive nominee. A big Gingrich win would’ve blown the race wide open. Instead, Romney comes away with a commanding lead in both votes cast and delegates pledged. Romney’s victory speech (above) was almost a rerun of the one he gave in New Hampshire three weeks ago. Then, he tried to cast himself as the inevitable Republican nominee, aiming his attacks at Barack Obama and calling

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

Romney to win in Florida, but by how much?

When this week began, Newt Gingrich was the clear favourite to win tonight’s Florida primary. He’d just beaten Mitt Romney by 13 points in South Carolina and two new polls put him 8 to 9 points ahead in Florida. Momentum was on his side, Romney was facing criticism over his tax returns, and he’d have two debates – his favourite campaigning medium – to press his advantage home. But – despite securing an endorsement from Herman Cain on Saturday – Gingrich now finds himself well behind Romney, and with just a 3 per cent chance of victory, according to Nate Silver’s model (above). Why the turnaround? Partly it’s down to

Saturday

Jonathan Mirsky

Fall from grace

Barack Obama is not up to the job. That is Ron Suskind’s oft-repeated contention. The President, he states, compromised with, rather than curbed, failing American financial institutions, and has surrounded himself with warring staffers who are either no more competent than he is or, if expert, disregard his wishes. Following a picture caption that reads ‘Obama showed real weakness in managing his own White House,’ Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize winner, justifies his title: The confidence of the nation rests on trust.Confidence is the immaterial residue of material actions: justly enforced laws, sound investments, solidly built structures . . . . Gaining the trust without earning it is the age-old work

Friday

Jonathan Jones

Is Newt’s chance slipping away?

Thanks to his spectacular surge last week, culminating in a big win in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, Newt Gingrich looked like he was back in contention for the Republican presidential nomination. Immediately, he took a commanding lead in Florida – which will host the next primary on Tuesday. And though Mitt Romney remained the clear favourite to go up against Barack Obama in November, Gingrich was still in the hunt. But this week – just when he was looking strong – it’s all gone a bit wrong for Gingrich. $13 million worth of ads from the pro-Romney Super PAC ‘Restore Our Future’ have dwarfed the $3 million spent

Thursday

Jonathan Jones

Clegg echoes Obama’s message

Nick Clegg, this morning, advocating closing loopholes for the rich to pay for raising the income tax threshold: ‘Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.’ Oh, all right, that wasn’t Clegg. That was Barack Obama, in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. But it’s remarkably similar to what Clegg just said in his speech at the Resolution Foundation this morning. On his account, the government ought to be ‘calling time on our out-of-whack tax system,’ as well as the ‘scandal of

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

Obama’s a hypocrite, but a slick hypocrite

As Pete says, Obama fired some well-aimed arrows in the direction of Mitt Romney in his State of the Union address. But it was also a clear attempt to outline Obama’s re-election message, which would, I think, be the same no matter who he faces in November. The idea is to stress that Obama, unlike the corrupt Republicans who nearly bankrupted America, is a ‘fair shake’ candidate, who stands for hard work and responsibility. It is hypocritical rubbish, as I tried to point out last month. The idea of Obama as the straight-shooting, anti-corruption candidate is absurd. President Obama has proved to be a very different politician to the progressive