 |
TWO ROCKS WAITING FOR THE MASS DECISION...For sound, fury and partisan rancour, nothing beats an American presidential election. As Campaign 2012 grinds to a photo-finish, only Hurricane Sandy managed, momentarily, to out-howl the attack ads. |
Mitt Romney’s stunning dismissal of half the electorate as self-pitying freeloaders who depend on the dole set the standard for cringe-inducing moments. “My job is not to worry about those people,” he told a private, $50,000-a-plate Republican fundraiser, with a candour that speaks to America’s corrosive ideological divide. Clint Eastwood’s oddball rambling chat with an empty chair was also a windfall for the Democrats, as were Romney’s professed love for Big Bird, and his “binders full of women.”
But Republicans, too, made hay from President Barack Obama’s unwise musing that “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.” They tore the remark out of context and paraded it as an ugly Big Government sneer at the sacred icon of American entrepreneurship.
Much of it was a “bunch of malarkey,” as Joe Biden might have said (and did), fodder for a $2.5-billion tsunami of negative advertising, personal slurs and dark half truths and evasions.
Still, the U.S. presidency matters, and the contrasts between Obama and Romney are significant, nowhere more so than in their respective approaches to the key issue in this campaign: the economy. Americans face a “big choice,” as Romney put it. And on that score alone, Obama stands head and shoulders above his rival.
At root, Obama is a principled pragmatist who favours moderately activist government. He wisely flexed federal taxing and spending power to hold the U.S. back from the economic abyss after Wall Street’s meltdown in the first days of his mandate, and to help spur growth and restore lost jobs. With an eye to the corrosive rich-poor divide, he wants the wealthiest and corporations to forgo some tax breaks to help bankroll modest stimulus and preserve core services to the vulnerable, as Washington pares military and other spending to tame the deficit. And he brought in progressive health-care reform that would benefit millions.
Romney, in contrast, spent much of the campaign shape-shifting, trying to shuck his self-described “severely conservative” Tea Party affiliation and rebrand himself, improbably, as a Ronald Reagan-style sunny optimist and compassionate conservative. He argues that smaller government, deregulation, major tax cuts and severe spending reductions (except for defence) are the way to spark growth and curb the deficit, an approach that has been tried before, without success. It’s an agenda that promises to enrich the wealthiest while cutting programs that help the poor. The Republicans would also repeal Obama’s health reforms. There’s a severe risk in all this of slowing growth, driving up unemployment and fraying social services. Leading economists also say Romney’s numbers don’t add up.
For most Canadians, indeed most of the world, the choice couldn’t be clearer. A British Broadcasting Corp. poll in 21 countries found a 5 to 1 preference for Obama. But Americans are harsher in their judgment.
Many credit Obama, rightly, with averting another Great Depression. For ending George W. Bush’s misguided war in Iraq, winding down the Afghan conflict, killing Osama bin Laden and kneecapping Al Qaeda. And for supporting Arab Spring democratic reformers.
But many also rate Obama poorly — and less fairly — on the slow pace of recovery and for failing to sell his agenda. Romney and his team have put forward no credible recovery plan of their own, and have been obtusely obstructionist in Congress. Still, their promise of “real change” sounded good at a time when the nation’s growth is a sluggish 2 per cent, household incomes have fallen, and a jobless rate of 7.9 per cent has left 12 million without work. The Republicans also blamed Obama for the deficit and debt, though they rang up much of it.
Even so, in many hearts grudging respect for Obama is at war with an impatient yearning for better days.
More than most of America’s partners, Canadians have a stake in the outcome. While Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government might feel ideologically closer to the Republicans, Obama has performed credibly, and has set the U.S. economy back on the path to recovery. Romney offers no real plan to accelerate that gain.
As Star columnist Tim Harper has recently written, Canada could be badly side-swiped unless the next occupant of the Oval Office brokers a deal in Congress to avoid the looming “fiscal cliff” of mandated tax increases and spending cuts next year. That could pare America’s output by more than 4 per cent, shake U.S. consumer confidence and eat into our $550-billion two-way trade, hammering our economy in the process. On that file, Obama is the more credible advocate of the balanced approach that would be to our benefit.
Canadians should also be concerned that efforts on Obama’s watch to expedite Canada-U.S. cross-border travel and trade — the Beyond the Border initiative to ease U.S. security fears — might be stalled by a change in administration. There is also Canada-U.S. energy trade to consider. For political reasons, Obama put the $7.6-billion TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline on hold. But he is not opposed in principle to the project.
Torn as Americans are, Obama has averted economic crisis, rung down the curtain on war and shown compassion for the vulnerable. He has earned a second term. By the help of internet...
