If Mitt Romney seeks the Republican Party’s nomination for the White House a third time, he could split the relatively moderate conservative vote at the detriment of former Florida governor Jeb Bush — and allow an anti-establishment third candidate to win.
American president Barack Obama participates in a televised debate with his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, in Hempstead, New York, October 16 (Obama for America/Scout Tufankjian)
Incumbent president Barack Obama won a second term on Tuesday after a hotly-contested election. While his Democratic Party did not regain control of the House of Representatives, it hold on to its majority in the Senate, inaugurating four more years of divided government.
The Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, had been neck and neck with the president in national preelection polls. But in most of the crucial swing states, including Ohio and Virginia, the incumbent eked out sometimes narrow victories, providing him with a comfortable Electoral College majority — even if the race in Florida was still too close to call on Wednesday morning.
Americans elect their president and vice president not by popular vote but through an electoral college system that advantages smaller states. Nevertheless, the outcome of the popular vote hardly ever differs from the outcome in the Electoral College. The most recent exception was in 2000 when Democrat Al Gore won roughly half a million more votes nationwide but George W. Bush won five more points in the Electoral College. Obama on Tuesday won a little over one million more votes than his challenger. Read more “Barack Obama Reelected on Edge of Fiscal Cliff”
Tuesday’s presidential election in the United States may well be decided in the northeastern “Rust Belt” states of Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin and the demographically comparable state of New Hampshire. Together, these states account for 58 electoral votes in the election, more than enough to tip the balance in either candidate’s favor.
Incumbent president Barack Obama has almost consistently polled ahead of his Republican challenger Mitt Romney in all five states but the latter cannot win the election without carrying either Pennsylvania, Ohio or two of the three remaining northeastern swing states. That is, assuming he wins in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia which seems likely. Read more “Auto Bailout, Energy Loom Over Election in Rust Belt”
Container terminal in the Houston Ship Channel, Texas (US Army Corps of Engineers)
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney complained in his debate with Barack Obama last week that America’s trade deficit with China is “growing larger every year.” The president countered that exports to China have increased during his term in office — not doubled as he claimed, though — suggesting that he, too, would be concerned about a trade deficit.
If an election is primarily a referendum on the incumbent, Barack Obama does not deserve to be reelected this November.
When he came to office, the Democrat promised to transcend the traditional party divides to cut the federal budget deficit in half and revitalize the nation’s economy.
Incumbent president Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, debated foreign policy in Boca Raton, Florida tonight in what was their third and last televised debate before November’s election.
American president Barack Obama participates in a televised debate with his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, in Hempstead, New York, October 16 (Obama for America/Scout Tufankjian)
President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, met in Hempstead, New York on Tuesday night for their second televised debate before November’s election.
Foreign policy was once the purview of the Republican Party but since it launched two major wars in the Middle East with no exit strategy and no plan to pay for it, the party has found itself in quite the bind. Contrast this with President Barack Obama’s record of ending an unpopular war in Iraq, toppling Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya with minimal use of force and no American casualties and the much hailed “pivot” to East Asia and Mitt Romney’s task to win back his party’s advantage on the subject becomes even more of an uphill climb.
The Republican candidate has been particularly critical of Obama’s alleged “apology” tours. This focus on the incumbent’s attempts to improve America’s standing in the world may stem from Romney’s misfortune of representing a strikingly diverse constituency on foreign policy as compared to George W. Bush eight years ago.
The party’s attempt to unite a warmongering neoconservative establishment with an anti-war libertarian constituency was perhaps no more evident than at this year’s convention. Glossed over in Clint Eastwood’s “old man and a chair” performance was the actor’s call for the United States to “get out of Afghanistan!” — a call that ignited raucous cheers from the crowd. (Imagine the reaction if a speaker did that in 2004.)
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney laid out his foreign policy vision in Lexington, Virginia on Monday. Although he criticized incumbent president Barack Obama for failing to lead, the specifics of his plan are not markedly different from the Democrat’s. Read more “Romney Condemns Obama’s Foreign Policy “Passivity””
Democratic president Barack Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, met for their first in three televised debates in the city of Denver tonight, the capital of Colorado which is one of nine states that can sway November’s election in either candidate’s favor.
The Atlantic Sentinel‘s Steve Keller said “this was a really wonky debate.”
President Obama seemed to go in with an eye toward playing defense and Mitt Romney playing offense. Both did so effectively.