Obama’s re-election?

By S P SETH

History was made in the United States when Barack Obama was elected as the country’s black President in 2008. At the time, the US was in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the 1930’s Depression. George Bush’s two-term presidency had been a disaster for US economy and its foreign and defense policies. Against this backdrop, Obama’s emergence on the electoral scene was electrifying, rallying around him minorities, independents plus the party’s traditional base of Democrats. Why? Because: during the gloom and doom of the time, he personified hope. His mantra of ‘yes, we can’ change and re-invent a new United States, energized the country. Of course, he didn’t win by a landslide. But considering the country’s deep racial divides, doubts about his birth (that he was not born in the US) and his religion (that he was a Muslim), his election as President was breathtaking. Obama not only promised to fix up the economy, he was also going to lift the United States’ image in the world, particularly in the Muslim world where it was almost rock bottom.

Looking back those times four years ago seemed surreal. What went wrong? First, Obama’s hopes of becoming a consensual President faded very early on after coming into office. As he said recently, “ My hope, when I came into office, was that we would have Republicans and Democrats coming together because the nation was facing extraordinary challenges.” But, he observed, “ It turns out that wasn’t their approach.” The rise of the Tea Party movement not only made Republicans more partisan and right wing but it also sought to play up the racist/Islamist card, though not directly. Doubts about Obama’s birth and religion tended to crop up here and there to remind people that Obama somehow was not a genuine American and the country was not safe and secure with him as President.  The Republicans were in no mood to legitimize him and his consensual platform.

In regard to the economy: they have even managed to somehow create the impression that all the United States’ economic woes are his doing as the country’s President; even though it was under George Bush’s watch that the economy went gangbuster, subsequently taking Europe with it too because of its exposure to the toxic US’ subprime housing mortgages. Obama would have won kudos if he had managed to turn around the economy but that was not to be. In other words, by not fulfilling popular expectations he raised during his election campaign, Obama’s shine has worn off. In the circumstances, the Republications have taken the axe to demolish him by creating a political gridlock in the country, thus making any forward movement a difficult, if not impossible, task.

Obama is now pitted against Mitt Romney in a very tight presidential race. He is trying to turn the heat on Romney and the Republicans  by painting them as the party of the rich, with their only solution to the country’s economic crisis being to cut taxes on the rich, while advocating spending cuts on programs that help the country’s middle and poor classes. The widening economic divide between the rich and poor and growing destitution in the country should perversely give Obama some edge over Romney, but it doesn’t seem to be working. In the United States, the politics of class divide/envy tends to consign its advocates into the fold of socialists, not a comfortable epithet to wear in the United States. Obama has to hear this charge thrown at him more frequently.

Americans pride themselves as entrepreneurial people committed to achieve the American Dream of becoming rich one day. With the country’s economic situation so fragile and about 13 million unemployed (many more if you include the under-employed), this fabled American Dream is becoming more like a nightmare for many people.  But it takes a long time for these myths to be recognized for what they really are. Therefore, Obama team’s political strategy of using the country’s class divide to its advantage might not work. In the absence of an appreciable improvement in country’s economy, and that doesn’t seem likely in the few months to the election, Obama is at a disadvantage.

Obama will have the advantage of minority votes, particularly from Afro-American and Latino communities. His deft use of his power to let many young people born of illegal Latino parents to live and work in the United States should help him to consolidate his electoral hold among Latino voters, particularly in swing states with a high concentration of such votes. He has also consolidated his support among the gays, having come out in favor of the same-sex marriage.

Obama’s problem this time is that he has lost his newness exuding hope and optimism for the country’s future. He comes out like any other politician, having made all sorts of compromises and evasions for his political career with an eye for his second term. That sort of charisma and chemistry, which energized so many independents, young and women, and mobilized many volunteers for his 2008 campaign, is missing. The economy is sluggish with not much hope of an appreciable improvement, if any. Mitt Romney’s message that he will fix up the economy because of his experience as a successful businessman, even if shoddy, might not be electrifying, but there is nothing else going around as people might perceive. The point to make is that even with so much in his favor in 2008, Obama won only by 7 point. And with so much now on the debit side in popular perception, he has reasons to worry. The election will be a cliffhanger.

In the area of national security and foreign policy, which is not an election clincher but very important for the world, Obama’s great message was to improve US image in the Islamic world. There were three concrete issues that mattered most. First, of course, was terrorism. As the country’s first black President, with lingering doubts about his credentials, Obama needed to show his toughness on the issue of terrorism. But putting more troops on the ground was not the right way to do so. This was reinforced with the failure of the one-off troops’ surge in Afghanistan. He therefore settled for the technology fix of target killings with the increasing use of drones, not only along the Pak-Afghan border but also in other terrorist suspect places in the world. The problem, though, is that it has also killed many innocent civilians, including women and children, thus further complicating US relations with Pakistan. But his tough policy has reinforced Obama’s security credentials against terrorism within the country. As David Cole writes in the New York Review of Books, “ One thing is certain: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will not be able to accuse Obama of being soft on security…”

The second issue, clouding US relations with the Islamic world, is Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory in flagrant violation of international law. In his Cairo speech, after he became President, Obama sought to reach out to the Islamic world, with a significant part of his address devoted to help resolve this intractable issue. But this was sabotaged by the intransigence of the Netanyahu government with the help of the powerful Jewish lobby in the United States. Obama has, therefore, retreated from this issue to assuage the Jewish lobby and financiers.

The third issue is the Iranian bomb, with Obama determined to pursue Iran on the question of its nuclear ambitions. While imposing comprehensive sanctions against Iran, Obama has also said that all US options are open (including bombing Iran, if necessary) to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Israeli tweaking has considerably shaped his tough anti-Iran policy.

 While all these issues of foreign policy and strategy are important for the world, Obama’s re-election will largely be decided by the state of the US economy. And being an incumbent President with not much to show by way of an appreciable turn for the better, he is at a disadvantage even though Mitt Romney as an alternative is hardly anything to crow about.  There are still a few months to go, and Obama might still come ahead by scoring well in the swing states.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.