The International Endorses President Obama for Re-Election in 2012

By The International

SATURDAY OCTOBER 27, 2012



This editorial is signed by Adam Kingsmith, Reporter; Simona Sikimic, Reporter; Stephanie Pedersen, Reporter; Marisa Cortright, Editor; and Amartya Biswas, Managing Editor.

The presidency of Barack Obama will see the end of its first term this fall. Like all American presidents before him, Obama has been imperfect. He has led a country struggling with domestic economic and social challenges, and has answered to an international community not without its own predicaments.

The International endorses Barack Obama for re-election in 2012. What follows is not a “better the devil you know” politic nor a bleeding heart appeal. It is, most fundamentally, a mechanism by which those undecided voters may better understand their options. It is also a reminder of the state of American politics and its associated international gravity.

Americans are due to decide who between two individuals will, among other things, lead their army, provide care for their sick, and provide opportunity for those who are without. These are tall orders, and thought must be given to who among these two men is best able to meet the diverse needs of this influential country. In this regard, what follows is an alarm bell for those who have not yet committed to voting- a reminder of the options and indeed, a foretelling of what that electoral abstinence may entail.

Lastly and more broadly, this is a presentation of American presidential politics for anyone, American or otherwise, to consider as a reference for what occurs on November 6th. We have outlined many of the occurrences belonging to the last four years, and have provided educated predictions, based on the word of the two men decreeing them. Whether any of the latter are maintained, we daren’t suggest.

What we dare do, though, is implore each citizen of the United States to be aware of the consequences of their decision on that day, and we suggest that those outside the United States pause ever so briefly and consider the implications of the forthcoming American election on the governments and existences of their own. The outcome will have tremendous reach, and at the very least, preparation for when that reach unfurls must begin with awareness.

The Economy

Despite emerging as the subject of intense national scrutiny over the last several months of campaigning, the economic policy proposals of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have yet to be clarified in such a way as to convince otherwise indecisive voters of their legitimacy.

Even in the aftermath of the three Presidential debates on domestic issues, neither candidate effectively legitimized their pre-debate stance on the economy, deficit reduction in particular.

Romney’s central argument, that his Five-Point Plan will chiefly benefit the middle class and reduce the deficit was well-received as one of the more cogent explanations given throughout the campaign. Yet his iteration, and reiteration, that “there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit” lacked the necessary definition of “deductions and exemptions and credits” that he plans to lower in order to retain revenue flow.

In the debates, Obama has consistently reinforced his position on reforming the tax code to favor middle-class families and small businesses. In particular, he referenced having “already lowered taxes for 98 percent of families” and “lowered taxes for small businesses 18 times.” These feats underscore his continued advocacy for imposing higher taxes on the wealthiest 1% of the population.



Mitt Romney and Barack Obama square off in the first of three Presidential Debates

I. The Financial Crisis

The Obama camp has tried to project an image of the president as a competent agent of crisis mitigation – especially in terms of employment figures – in the aftermath of the 2008 housing bubble burst. Meanwhile, Romney’s opposing argument has shown Obama as the harbinger of job loss. Each has relied upon constantly varying figures to support their respective claims, and the level of public comprehension has thus been compromised.

Two crucial pieces of legislation – one successful and one squandered by Senate rejection – form the basis of Obama’s intentions, and shape his record on managing the deleterious effects of the financial crisis. They must be viewed in the context of Obama inheriting an auto industry in the Midwest in near-death, an economy with a vacuum of liquid assets in investment banks, and with unemployment rates cripplingly high resulting in low growth rates of GDP.

Obama’s first major move – one that many declare as successful, yet what Romney denounces as inadequate – was the bailout of the automobile industry, primarily General Motors and Chrysler.

Prior to Obama having allocated the rescue funds, Romney asserted that his plan for the auto industry would involve a “managed bankruptcy”, allowing for auto companies to “shed excess labor.” Romney’s rhetoric was aimed at underlining a need for a complete restructuring of the fiscal and management policies of the industry. Instead, he only served to undercover the hypocrisy of his later claims that Obama’s economic policies were increasing unemployment.

Quite the opposite was shown by a nonpartisan report from The Center for Automotive Research: the $80 billion bailout directly led to nearly 1.5 million people working.

Though this early example of crunch-time leadership from Obama did not serve to quiet his opposition, it was not the last of his major efforts in managing the crisis.

In early 2009, he went on to sign into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, more commonly referred to as “the stimulus.” Divided into three sections – tax benefits, contracts, grants and loans, and entitlements – the act has allocated a total of $772 billion in funds across all sectors of government including nationally funded education, transportation and infrastructure, as well as tax credits for individuals and businesses, and grants for Medicare/Medicaid and unemployment insurance. As per Politifact, the bailout as a total sum has not been ruled decidedly helpful or unhelpful in the grand scheme of economic recovery.

Romney has attacked the stimulus, stating that it “raised the deficit and [has] not put Americans back to work.” In actuality though, at the end of 2010, the recession was on the decline with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reporting that the year saw the unemployment rate drop from 9.9% to 9.4%, a total of 556,000 people. This drop may have also been attributed to the decrease of active job-seekers in the employment market due to economic disillusionment nevertheless. Indeed, the BLS notes that the civilian labor force saw a decline of 260,000 people during the same period.

Had the President’s most recent legislative push, this time the American Jobs Act of 2011, made it through Congress – dying in a Senate vote instead – the Tax Policy Center noted that it could have had positive effects on the economy. It would have permanently raised taxes on high-income individuals and certain businesses, raising revenue as well as temporarily cutting certain high individual business taxes to promote job growth. Essentially, the Act would have loosened the belt around small business owners and accordingly tightened it around larger businesses and wealthy individuals. Similar measures to Obama’s American Jobs Act were enforced during the Clinton era, leading to robust economic growth in the 1990s.

The ensuing debate over whose tax plan victimizes which socio-economic groups has become the crux of the economic debate, especially after Romney’s vice presidential choice of Congressional budgeteer Paul Ryan was made in August.

II. Tax plans and debt reduction strategies

Coming directly from an interview with Romney on his “5-point Plan for the Economy,” the national debt can and should be reduced in a fashion based on the proposal of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform – i.e. the commission headed by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. Also referred to as the Simpson-Bowles plan, the proposal has enjoyed the support of prominent economists and congressmen of both parties. Yet, the entry of Ryan into the Romney camp has complicated this element, with Ryan’s history of opposing the Simpson-Bowles plan.

The Tax Policy Center found in reviewing the extent of the Romney Plan – not the Ryan plan, which is, somehow, more ardently conservative – that it would permanently extend the 2001-03 Bush tax cuts (now of interest as they stand to expire at the year end’s ‘fiscal cliff’), induce a 20% cut to individual income tax rates, and eliminate the taxation of investment income for most taxpayers (capital gains taxes).

While Romney’s critics question how the above-identified points corroborate his claims that revenue can be raised without raising taxes on the middle class, yet more skepticism surrounds the mechanism of how the tax base would be broadened. In the case that the base would not be broadened (without specification, there is no way to know), Romney’s plan would reduce the total federal tax liability by $900 billion, or a 24% decrease in projected revenue in 2015 compared with the current law. These figures offer no hope for reducing the deficit and would in fact cause it to balloon almost immediately.

Obama’s proposals for future fiscal policy have come in the form of the 2013 budget proposal, which has also been thoroughly combed by the Tax Policy Center for Nonpartisan Analysis. Their report found that the proposal would raise the tax rate for the two brackets of taxpayers from 36% to 39.6% after 2012, allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, and tax their net long-term capital gains at a 20% rate. It would also extend the payroll tax cut through 2012, extend middle class tax cuts like the Earned Income Credit, American Opportunity tax credit, and child and dependent tax credits, as well as create incentives for expanding manufacturing jobs and give tax relief to small businesses.

While critics can fairly argue that each plan lacks a solid mechanism for generating enough revenue to balance out new and continued tax cuts, the Obama proposal at minimum includes the provisions for raising revenue via a tax increase on the highest income taxpayers. At most, it will allow for the sustained viability of middle class families and small business owners to remain financially stable and solvent.

One particular thing to note in the proposal is Obama’s nod to the expansion of jobs in the manufacturing sector. This identification of an industry in which there is the capacity for job growth leads to another important arena of comparison between the candidates.

Science & Technology

Amongst the talk of innovation in science and technology between the candidates, there has frequently been overt mention of job creation, and the possibility that advances in the science and technological industries can and will hold great promise for employing Americans. Yet there exists a differentiation in the candidates’ discernments, and which sectors can feasibly and sustainably support job growth in relation to the associated advancements.

For example, much of Romney’s discussion of technological and scientific advancement is in relation to his energy policy. That is to say – the imagined necessity of every type of new and existing energy at one’s fingertips for the sake of American energy independence from volatile international markets and suppliers. His conception of innovation is thusly the expansion of controversial techniques in hydrofracking and natural gas extraction. Part of this plan comes in deregulating the geographical limits on the practices, like “dramatically [increasing] licensing and permitting on federal lands” for natural gas. Evidently Romney lacks a judicious eye for which types of technologies can be used responsibly, as blinded by his fervor for accumulating energy resources whilst carrying the banner of job creation.

The Obama administration has instead exercised a careful plan of increasing investment in clean and renewable energy generation – the latter of which has doubled since 2008 by way of wind, solar, and geothermal energy. In terms of advancing the technologies on which the country relies to effectively disperse the energy supply, Obama has been seeking methods to accelerate the construction of smart grid infrastructure projects to increase the grid capacity, avoid blackouts, and better facilitate the use of renewables. A White House press report noted that the last year saw a 10% decrease in net oil imports and that since Obama took office, dependence on foreign oil has decreased every year.

Beyond energy, Obama has been looking ahead to nascent industries that can re-energize American manufacturing. In March 2012, he put forward an initiative with the purpose of “identifying a recipient to establish a pilot Institute for Additive Manufacturing to accelerate research, development, and demonstration in additive manufacturing and transition technology to manufacturing enterprises within the United States.”

I. National infrastructure investment planning

The American Jobs Act of 2011 – the one that failed in the Senate – had called for “immediate investments and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank", essentially with the purpose of leveraging government funds to initiate crucial infrastructure projects and energize an accordant workforce. A similar 2012 stimulus called for $226 billion to be spent on projects like new roads and high-speed rail. Rail projects have faced regional arguments – notably proposed lines in California and New York – yet have merit in the discussions of long-term economic growth that they engender.

Romney briefly mentioned his support for “substantial investments” in construction projects like “highways as well as rail and air and communications infrastructure”, yet when asked to elaborate on spending programs to eliminate he specifically named “the Amtrak subsidy.” The value of subsidizing crucial transportation initiatives like rail and electric cars has conversely not been lost on Obama, whose administration has garnered more than $4 billion for electric vehicles, half through federal grants. These types of technological advancement in transportation are intricately linked with the earlier discussion of energy policy, a relationship that only Obama seems to have grasped.

Both candidates see science and technological advances as integral parts of creating jobs and diversifying American industrial production; the question is how sustainable the jobs are in a long-term economic view as well as an environmental view.

Human Rights

In 2008 Obama rose to power largely on the hopes and dreams of Americans, tired of the Bush administration’s betrayal of their constitutional rights and freedoms, not to mention the abandonment of even the most basic human rights norms for foreign nationals in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and Pakistan.

For the vision he espoused and the promises he made, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize less than a year into his term. As his critics point out, that praise was premature and Obama’s record has been mixed. For instance, he has not closed Guantanamo, but progress has been made. It is now at risk of being undone by a Romney/Ryan White House.

Time and again, Romney has uttered a promise to repeal Obamacare as his first presidential act. The sheer technical difficulties of this aside, a repeal would take away the prospect of healthcare for tens of millions. This is not just economically questionable, it is in contravention of human rights norms, which revolve around the concept of people having their physical needs met. As such, Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) stipulates that, "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care…”

Shifting into public discourse, aside from such debates over the right to healthcare are a number of debates concerning the rights of women in America. Under the guise of freedom of religion, aspects of Obamacare such as requiring religious institutions to offer insurance that includes contraception, were attacked and used as part of the wider Republican Party’s assault on gender rights.

The so-called “War on Women” has perhaps been one of the most widely cited phrases of this election cycle, and women have increasingly found themselves targeted by Republican politicians and Republican state legislatures. Laws requiring women to undergo pre-natal screening (including vaginal ultrasounds) before having an abortion are proliferating, as have moves to restrict access to birth control.

Romney has tried to distance himself from the volatility of such issues, but his choice of the unabashedly pro-life Paul Ryan as his running mate, indicate that he would do little to ward off a broader assault on women’s rights.

In comparison, Obama (who has roughly held a 20 percent majority with women voters) has fought hard to alleviate gender bias.

Obama has fought to end pay discrimination in the workplace and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, which allows women the right to sue, into law. This is a crowning achievement of the current Democratic president and a fundamental universal right that prohibits discrimination based on race or gender.

In spite of this, more remains to be done, particularly with respect to liberalizing rules around creating and joining labour unions, a right enshrined into the UDHR.

Women, especially those in marginalized industries such as domestic workers and farm hands, are the most disenfranchised. While they work in some of the most vulnerable trades, legal loopholes in place since the 1930s largely prevent them from unionizing.

On the whole, Obama has expressed his willingness to work with unions, while not bowing down to them. On the other hand, The Romney/Ryan ticket has called for teachers unions to be banned from contributing campaign funds and spoken out against the power of worker organizations. The Republican party has also moved to make unionization harder in places like Wisconsin. Whoever the next president is, he will have to strike a fine balance between promoting economic growth – which is needed to ensure that other human rights, like education, will be met – and ensuring that the American people attain their rightful access to health, gender equality and union representation.

I. International failures hitting close to home

As one of his first acts as President, Obama symbolically set a deadline for the closure of the high security Guantanamo Prison in Cuba by the beginning of 2010. The prison drew notoriety as the US detained hundreds of terrorist suspects, subjected them to clandestine interrogation techniques, held many for year and without trial. As his first term ends, however, the prison remains open, due to legal hurdles and opposition from both congressional Democrats and Republicans. Over 100 prisoners are still there for the foreseeable future, owing to difficulties in repatriating or transferring them to civilian U.S. prisons.

Upon taking office, Obama likewise ended waterboarding, but has permitted the use of other extreme interrogation techniques to continue. Any form of torture is forbidden under the Geneva Convention There is no suggestion that this will end in the next four years but Romney has repeatedly refused to classify waterboarding as “torture,” which, if he is elected, could pave the way for its reintroduction. At the end of the day it comes down to what is a lesser of two evils.

Another highly controversial element of Obama’s foreign policy – drone strikes – is also perhaps one of his most popular domestically. It has allowed the U.S. to target terrorist suspects in countries where it is not at war, namely Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, while keeping U.S. troops off the ground in battlefields. It is additionally seen as relatively cheap and blood-free for the American forces, especially in comparison to wars like Iraq. Nevertheless, its technical advantages cannot be used as a blanket validation.

The drone policy has been expanded tremendously under Obama’s time in office. In Pakistan alone there have now been over 330 attacks, killing up to almost 3,000 people. Strikes have targeted individuals, including U.S. citizens, in countries with which the U.S. is not at war. The Pentagon has rarely commented on the women and children that have also been caught up in the strikes which were meant to strategically target terrorist network combatants. Drone strikes are increasingly authorized by intelligence agencies with little external accountability.

Christof Heyns, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, said in June that the CIA sanctioned killings flew in the face of long-established human rights standards, going as far as to suggest that some of the strikes could constitute “war crimes”. Above all, the policy is troubling because it sets a bad precedent and could be abused by successive Presidents. It can also be used by countries all over the world, namely Russia, Israel, UK and China; all of whom are fast catching up in drone technology.

The U.S. must tread lightly and avoid furthering its own human rights abuses abroad to have any hopes in checking the abuses of other nations. Obama’s record on Guantanamo, torture and drones has been far from exemplary. But at the very least the President has recognized these actions as evils and has made tentative steps to rectify grievances. It is unclear whether his opponent would show even an equal amount of restraint.

Foreign Policy

It is rare for a liberal president – especially one branded by the far right as a socialist, and even a secret Muslim – to be leading the foreign policy charge going into the election. But President Obama’s foreign policy card is perhaps one of his strongest plays against Mitt Romney. Nonetheless his performance is not beyond reproach.

I. Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan

President Obama’s famous 2009 Cairo Speech was intended as a reset button that would reverse the hostilities amassed by President George W. Bush and his wars in Afghanistan, but more controversially Iraq. When Obama spoke, promising to end “the cycle of suspicion and discord,” the Arab and wider Muslim world listened. Many are now unsure if they were right to.

Yet Obama, as pledged, ended the war in Iraq and brought back U.S. troops. Iraq has ceased to be a quagmire of endless bloodletting, although it remains decades away from the democracy Bush aspired to install. Romney, who called ending the Iraq war “tragic,” would have been on the wrong side of history here. Keeping U.S. troops in Iraq was against the wishes of the Iraqi and the American people alike, who have lost their appetite for further American adventures in the Middle East.

Afghanistan, however, will prove a harder chapter to end. Obama has won respect from both ends of the aisle for his handling of the navy operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, while his 2009 December troop surge has been credited with stemming the Islamist insurgency. But as the August beheading by the Taliban of 17 civilians demonstrates, vast tracts of the country remain beyond the control of the corrupt and unpopular government. It seems unlikely that stability will be achieved before Obama’s 2014 troop withdrawal deadline.

A case can be made against pulling out by an arbitrary date when Al Qaeda and others could exploit a power vacuum and return, but Romney has proposed no policies of his own and backs the 2014 exit. Afghanistan seems so far from his thoughts that at the national G.O.P. convention in Florida Romney became the first Republican presidential nominee in history to not mention an ongoing war.

Syria, where some 27,000 have now been killed and 2.7 million displaced, was also miraculously unmentioned in Romney’s speech, although elements of his party, notably John McCain, are vocal proponents of military intervention.

Vice President Joe Biden has said that Romney is ready for war, but while Romney may talk the talk, he has not spelled out that he could walk the walk. He has never made it clear how he would fund such an operation, nor stated how would have tackled the Arab Spring any differently than Obama. He has been supportive of Obama who “lead from behind” during the NATO intervention in Libya, and while Romney may have postured with tougher rhetoric, he has provided no roadmap for action in the region.

His quickness to score political points after the death of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other diplomats in September also backfired, with even Republicans condemning his rush to comment on unfolding events in Cairo.



How the U.S. responds to continuing social and political change in the Middle East and North Africa will go a long way in shaping their perception globally as the world’s foremost democratic nation.


II. Israel/Palestine and Iran

With (Iraq) and Afghanistan likely to start fading from the headlines, the Israel / Palestine issue, which continues to be a source of much resentment in the Arab world and beyond, threatens to push its way to the front of the next presidential agenda.

The situation is in worse shape than when Obama took office and his 12-month push for peace in 2010 proved laughable. The number of Israeli settlements continued to rise, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2010 announcing the construction of 1,600 new settler homes the day that Biden arrived in Jerusalem to revive talks.

The brief diplomatic spat that followed was settled, but led Obama to lose his lustre for peace negotiations. It is possible that in his second term, Obama’s ambitions will be renewed, but he has so far stayed quiet on the matter.

On the other hand, instead of laying low, Romney is likely do the opposite. He has applauded Israel for sharing the same values as America and called the country America’s “best friend in the Middle East.” Appealing to the Republican base and Israeli donors on a recent trip to Israel, Romney even blamed Palestinian economic inferiority on cultural differences. The Palestinians quickly hit back, citing World Bank findings that fault Israeli-imposed trade and other restrictions for poor economic growth.

Romney’s brashness about an impossibly complex and sensitive issue illustrates his foreign affairs inexperience, or worse yet, his unwillingness to learn. Suggesting, as he has done, that he would support unilateral Israeli intervention against suspected Iranian nuclear sites is foolish, especially given the wider turbulence in the Middle East, not to mention the oil price shock such action would spark.

Ultimately, a lasting resolution to the Iran crisis must include China and Russia, who continue to trade with and supply Iran. This will require diplomacy and compromise, skills Romney’s actions to date illustrate he will not exercise willingly.

III. China and Russia

The symbiotic U.S.-China relationship is ever-changing, unbalanced, and in need of an overhaul. Both Romney and Obama know they must carve out a new path and carefully monitor the change in Chinese leadership scheduled for November 8. Their strategies for doing this, however, vastly differ.

In the latest sign that China desires to translate its growing economic prosperity into geopolitical gravitas, it has sparked several territorial disputes with U.S. allies in the South China Sea, namely Japan and the Philippines in recent months.

This further validates Obama’s early decision to “pivot” U.S. resources to the region to bolster regional allegiances, while not openly aggravating China. By slowly strengthening his hand, yet not openly confronting China, Obama hopes to stall Chinese ambitions while pressurizing Beijing to wind down its unfair trading practices by taking trade disputes to the World Trade Organization.

These are gradual strategies, reflective of China’s pragmatic character. Romney’s pledge to hammer China on his first day in office on everything from trade policy to currency deflation to human rights is basically the antithesis of this. While likely to infuriate China, it is unlikely to heed positive results.

Ensuring China’s neutrality, if not acquiescence, at a time of increasingly fraught U.S.-Russia relations, seems as important as ever. The U.S. alone has few tools with which to pressure Russia, riding high on its soaring oil and gas revenues that have been used to buy silence from the Europeans, and which fuel a worrisome spiral back into dictatorship.

Bullying Russia, a country that prides itself for its stubbornness, is counterproductive. Needed instead is a multi-pronged approach of keeping oil and gas prices low, which necessitates stalling unilateral action on Iran and cooperating with, and not confronting, China.

Willingness to compromise on strategic arms reductions in Eastern Europe, a particular point of contention for the Russians, is also necessary. Obama partially backed down on the missile defence shield in Poland in 2009 and was unwittingly caught on tape promising the Russians to review the strategy after his re-election. He may have been too soft on the issue but he has left himself room to manoeuvre.

On the other hand, Romney’s comments that Russia was “without question, our No. 1 geopolitical foe” have done the opposite, prompting President Vladimir to thank Romney for justifying Russia’s continued posturing over missile defence in Europe.

IV. Europe, also known as everywhere else

Once considered the main U.S. allies, the Europeans – just like in this editorial – have become an afterthought. They feel snubbed by Obama, who has shifted his policy objectives elsewhere, but are more consumed with fixing their own troubles than with pleasing their NATO partner.

Nonetheless, as Europeans begin to shift from economic austerity to growth-centric models – in principle if not in reality – the prospect of Romney’s tax cuts for the rich, or his military escapades in Iran, have Europeans worried that the U.S. would push the world into an irreversible economic meltdown. The Republican nominee’s summer trip to the continent was subsequently scorned by the press, who labelled him less than presidential. Even British Prime Minister David Cameron publicly rebuked Romney for his negative comments on the London Olympic preparations.

Regardless of their general distaste for Romney, with Poland a key exception, when push comes to shove Europe will stick by America, although with less enthusiasm than ever before. But exultation is no longer the name of the game.

Those who hope that as a second term president Obama will shed his previous restraints and deliver on the promise he offered up to his supporters in 2008, will be disappointed. Instead his second term, much like his first, is likely to be marked by pragmatism.

While pragmatism may not win hearts, it is what is needed, especially in troubled economic times where diplomatic fissures are coming undone. Romney may well try and present himself as a fellow pragmatist, but his stances to date suggest otherwise, likely due to pressure from the right wing of his party.

By not offering up solutions in the Middle East, blindly supporting Israel – including on Iran – and badgering Russia and China, while not building allies elsewhere, Romney’s foreign policy could well choke America, rather than help it reclaim its pre-eminence on the world stage.

Environment

In the next four years, environmental policy observers will be looking to Americans to see if they can truly decrease dependence on foreign energy while at the same time investing in clean energy. The past four years under Obama’s presidency saw the United States implement legislation to combat climate change as well as engage in international discussions at the Copenhagen Clime Change Conference in 2009. While it’s true that Obama stopped short of agreeing on any specific measures to combat climate change, he had the dual pressure of having to boost unemployment at the same time, which meant bolstering jobs in traditionally environmentally unfriendly industries, including the coal industry.

While both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney cite decreasing foreign energy dependence as one of the main tenets of their energy platforms, they diverge in their beliefs on how this should be done. On these respective areas, Obama advocates for a planned energy economy, while Romney favours a market energy economy. Obama also stresses the need to invest in solar and wind energy, while Romney sees these as not “economically viable”, emphasising domestic energy expansion in oil and gas instead as paramount.

In fact, Romney’s environmental platform is framed almost entirely in economic terms. He has stated that whilst making every effort to safeguard the environment, he will also be “mindful at every step” of protecting the jobs of Americans.

I. So what does this mean exactly?

Counter to focusing on the efforts needed to preserve the environment, Mitt Romney’s plans have consistently prioritized economic goals whilst neglecting the environment. From deregulating the coal industry, further developing domestic oil and gas reserves, amending the Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview, and implementing fast track procedures for energy corporations to conduct pre-approved activities in expanding areas; Romney’s plans has championed the expanses of the energy sector.

Yet when the world will undoubtedly be looking to America for environmental leadership in the next four years, there are simply no efforts to safeguard the environment in his schematic. The coal industry is one of the world’s dirtiest forms of energy, and further deregulating it will increase pollution, as will amending the Clean Air Act to exclude carbon dioxide. Even as one of Romney’s main energy goals is to decrease energy dependence on South American and Middle Eastern oil suppliers, reliance on the coal industry is a misguided way to do this.

In the recent presidential debate on domestic issues, Romney accused Obama of crushing the coal industry with his environmental policy, claiming that the policies of the Environmental Protection Agency’s policies are leading to layoffs in the coal industry. He even summed up his position by stating, “I like coal.”

Under Obama’s presidency, the percentage of coal plants as a part of the American energy sector has fallen. Yet while the coal industry is actually up in employment, the losses experienced by the coal industry that Romney has attacked Obama with in the Presidential debates are due to cheap natural gas, and not Obama’s policies in fact.

Romney also plans to prioritize oil and gas exploration in a market capacity, meaning that he will rely on markets to allocate capital to the most productive opportunities rather than utilizing the government to guide the development of the energy sector. He has lamented the fact that there are federal lands off limits to oil and gas exploration, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which he has promised to open to exploration and drilling. There are obvious risks in further development of oil and gas reserves, particularly in the Arctic where drilling technology is relatively untested in Arctic conditions and especially in light of the Deepwater Horizon spill still in recent memory.



An offshore drilling rig off the coast of Santa Barbara, CA. Promoting cleaner development of energy resources in the U.S. will undoubtedly be necessary to set a commanding example in the international effort to combat climate change.

Interestingly enough, as Governor of Massachusetts, Romney supported a number of clean energy initiatives (such as wind power), took a tough stance on coal fired plants and advocated for working toward curbing climate change. His position has now completely reversed, with him now expressing himself as a climate-change sceptic, along with his running mate Paul Ryan, stating that investing money into current energy initiatives is essential to decreasing foreign energy dependence.

Climate change is a transnational issue that requires global cooperation from world leaders in order to manage. Given this, and the fact that the United States has the second highest carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the world, Romney’s scepticism for climate-change could potentially derail any major international initiatives to work on the issue.

On the other hand, throughout his term as President, Barack Obama has already demonstrated a far more pragmatic approach to balancing the needs of the energy sector against the need for environmental consideration.

Perhaps one of the most important environmental reforms implemented during his term was the strict vehicle mileage standards which will decrease carbon dioxide outputs and reduce oil usage per vehicle. Combined with his efforts to reinvigorate the auto industry, this could allow the US to become more competitive internationally in the production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

While Obama has acknowledged the need to expand the United States’ oil and gas reserves, he has also expressed a need to invest federal funds into the solar and wind sectors as the primary way to decrease dependence on foreign oil and to become world leaders in clean energy.

He also sees investment in clean energy as a way to create jobs, stating that, “I want us to stop giving tax subsidies to oil companies that are already incredibly profitable. I want to double down on our investment in clean energy that’s never been more promising—in solar and wind and biodiesel—and put people back to work so that we can free ourselves from dependence on foreign oil and build up America.”

While Obama has experienced some shortcomings, such as his failure to push through climate change legislation, or updating outdated environmental regulatory laws to produce new and innovative environmental policy, Obama has demonstrated that he is prepared to make the hard decisions when it comes to protecting the environment. His decision to delay the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, due to serious environmental concerns, is perhaps the best example of this.

While many environmental issues are transnational in nature and will require a President that will need to consider them within a global context, he will also have to carefully balance these issues with the needs of the economy, as the two are so inextricably intertwined.

Health

The issue of healthcare reform is perhaps one of the more controversial issues of the election, with both Romney and Obama each having a specific idea of how it should be accomplished. The reforms which will mostly be phased in early 2014, will bring a commitment to universality and affordability, while at the same time maintaining equality.

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney implemented a landmark healthcare reform that was similar to the national healthcare reform that Obama recently passed. Some may even say that his served as the model for Obama’s reforms passed in 2010. In Massachusetts, Romney required citizens to purchase health insurance or pay a tax as a penalty if they failed to do so. Indeed this helped Massachusetts become the state with the lowest number of uninsured Americans.

However, Romney has since reversed his stance on healthcare and his healthcare reforms do not hold the principle of a federally funded universal healthcare program as being particularly important. If elected, he has promised to repeal Obama’s healthcare reforms and would reform Medicare to be a premium support system. Romney plans on allowing states to regulate their own insurance markets through what he calls free markets and fair competition.
Essentially, Romney would restore the healthcare system to what it was before Obama’s reforms, reverting back to a time where too many Americans did not have health insurance because they simply could not afford it.

The problem with this, as Obama has pointed out, is that it fails to create a national standard for Medicare and Medicaid and inevitably allows people to fall through the cracks in the system. That being said, it was under this system that Romney was able to implement healthcare reforms in Massachusetts, making it the most insured province in the country. It is under this system of state level control that Romney envisions other healthcare reforms being able to take place.

Obama has been more consistent with his healthcare platform and has repeatedly called for a national standard for healthcare to ensure that all Americans are able to afford healthcare insurance and receive quality care. He then went on to demonstrate that he keeps electoral promises and passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010.

Obama has also recognized that as the national debt grows, the need to make cuts in federal spending is important. Obama has proposed cutting $716 billion to healthcare spending over the course of ten years. He recognizes that the federal healthcare spending pool is finite. Without his cuts, analysts have predicted that the federal spending pool would be used up in four years. Obama seeks to force hospitals to become more efficient by reducing wasteful spending while still offering quality care. Furthermore, the Medicare overhaul will allow seniors to spend less money on drugs.

While Romney has criticized Obama’s proposed cuts to healthcare, stating that he is “robbing” Medicare which leave seniors without quality healthcare, he fails to address the fact that the federal coffers are limited. Nor has he proposed how to maximize the utility of the money that would otherwise dry up in four years.

Ten years ago when he ran for Governor of Massachusetts, Romney proclaimed that he would protect a woman’s “right to choose.” But in 2004, Romney changed his rhetoric claiming that he was pro-life. Now as a part of his platform, Romney has stated that, if elected, he would cut all federal funding to groups like Planned Parenthood, continue to support the Hyde Amendment, as well as call for Roe v. Wade to be repealed.

While Romney has vacillated on healthcare in the past, his selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has suggested a preference for more conservative values with respect to healthcare. Paul Ryan is a co-sponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which would prohibit in vitro fertilization and other assisted reproductive technology due to the fact that embryos that are not used are either destroyed or used for stem cell research. Romney has been on both sides of this issue, previously stating that he was pro-life and anti stem cell research. But in 2004, he stated that while still pro-life, he supported stem cell research that utilized in vitro embryos. On a side note, Romney’s son and daughter-in-law recently underwent in vitro and had twins as a result.

Obama’s stance on women’s health issues is far less convoluted. Obama has stated that insurance plans for employed women will cover the cost of birth control without co-pays or deductibles as part of free preventative services. This came into effect August 1, 2012. He is exempting religious employers from this new rule in order to respect their religious beliefs. In 2003, he stated that he was pro-choice in all matters of women’s health.

In 2009, Obama lifted the Bush ban on the use of federal dollars to fund stem cell research claiming that “medical miracles do not happen simply by accident.”

Providing affordable, quality healthcare for all Americans are the most pressing needs with regards to the healthcare debate. Obama has already demonstrated a more consistent approach to meeting these criteria as per his healthcare reforms, even if the reforms do contain some shortcomings. Romney’s own approach and rhetoric are far less consistent and beg the serious question of reliability post election.

Cultural Appeal

The 2012 US presidential elections may not be as ripe with messages of “Hope,” and “Change,” but projections show that people still respond to vision and intelligence, and that archaic binaries such as ideology and race do not pigeonhole democratic processes.

During his first term in office, President Barack Obama has perpetually altered the pitch and substance of popular culture, conveying that what is so pop culturally unequivocal about his abilities as a president is not so much Obama as cause, but Obama as effect.

Obama is one of the few modern heads of state able to reach out to the populous in an accessible way. While some argue this is through gimmicky politics, the reality is Obama is employing the language of the everyday to get people excited about democracy again, and with a voter turnout of just over half in 2008 (56.8 %), politics could use this kind of press.

According to the New York Times, Obama is unique as he “strategically harnessed pop culture, produced it with two best-selling books, and that he avidly consumes it”. In our Balkanized era, Barack Obama simply is the pop culture colossus, proving that even in American politics, “the very good can occasionally become very, very popular.”

Consequently, no endorsement of Barack Obama’s continued abilities as the Commander-in-Chief is complete without a detailed exploration of how he has transformed public engagement in America. The ways in which his administration has amalgamated old tricks from the political tool-kit with the digital mediums of the 21st century, connecting with voters by visual, video, and virtual means has to be lauded.

I. Obama in Visual

It was not officially commissioned by the Obama campaign, but over the past four years it has acquired the sort of cult status usually reserved for artistic interpretations of Uncle Sam and Che Guevara. Created by street artist Shepard Fairey, the infamous high-contrast “Hope” poster became the quintessential
pop-icon for Obama’s rise.

The Hope poster globally redefined how people constitute the relationship between politics and culture. In the words of the Times, it was a “perfect pop icon for the moment, both a quasi parody of old-school propaganda and the uncynical real thing.”

The poster, like Obama himself, served as a bridge between the political and the cultural. No other President has been able to inspire so many different cultures and ethnicities to unite under a single image and message, that Obama offers a change.

From his likeness entirely in gumballs, to being portrayed as Abraham Lincoln, Superman, and Elvis Presley, Obama has captured the imaginations of artists around the world in ways never done before by a President; he even stars in a comic book series.

His new campaign has even launched a poster contest seeking submissions that will convey “why we’ll re-elect him to continue fighting for jobs for the next four years.” A quintessential example of how President Obama employs the visual arts in new ways that gets everyone from small-time street artists to professional designers excited about politics.



Despite having been brought down to earth since 2008, President Obama is still able to transcend the limits of governance and capture the public imagination the world over with relative ease.

II. Obama in Video

When Barack Obama appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 19, 2009, it was the first time in history a U.S. President did an interview on late night TV. It was also a display of Obama’s personal commitment to come to the voters with the issues.

Throughout his Presidency, Obama has taken to reaching out to voters beyond anything Truman (first president on TV), could have ever imagined. According to Time, he has traded jokes with Jay-Z, danced to Beyonce with Ellen Degeneres, and even talked pop culture on The View, also becoming the first president to appear on daytime TV.

With each appearance, Barack Obama reifies his abilities as both a campaigner and a leader. Earlier this year during a White House concert, he sang (quite well) “Sweet Home Chicago” with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Mick Jagger, later confessing to Rolling Stone Magazine, “I can sing. I wasn’t worried about being able to hit those notes.”

Later in that Rolling Stone interview, Obama added that he thinks “The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart is brilliant” because “It’s amazing to me the degree to which he’s able to cut through a bunch of the nonsense, for young people in particular, where I think he ends up having more credibility than a lot of more conventional news programs do.”

Clearly Obama understands that TV is an ally in his quest to get the American people excited about politics again. After all, popular television is national airtime where Obama can highlight the key issues affecting the country and driving the election with potential voters who may not follow politics, but enjoy their late night talk shows.

III. Obama goes virtual

Beyond iconized art and televisual engagement, Obama has understood the value of a virtual presence. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Obama’s campaign has posted four times as much content as the Romney campaign and is active on nearly twice as many platforms.

The Pew study continues to note that, “Obama’s digital content also engendered more response from the public — twice the number of shares, views and comments of his posts.” Moreover, “Obama also has twice the number of Twitter retweets and YouTube comments, likes or views as Mitt Romney, and nearly 80 percent more Facebook likes.”

According to the Financial Times, the 2012 presidential race is the first true social media election, and Obama continues to dominate in all virtual battlegrounds, a testament to his attunement with what matters to voters. He has tweeted his Spotify playlist, boasts over 20 million Twitter followers to Romney’s estimated 1.2 million, and his recent well-received appearance on the community news site Reddit, overloaded the servers.

From fundraisers at George Clooney’s Hollywood home to employing social networks to organize rock concert rallies, what we are seeing is a leader who knows how to connect with his populous in the unconventional language of the popular culture. Obama is a unique Commander-in-Chief through his willingness to bring political to the people.

IV. Cultural clashes between candidates

Contrastingly, Romney continues to battle perceptions that he is an out of touch elitist, a cultural stigma of a different sort which has only worsened after he was secretly recorded referring to 47 per cent of Americans as dependent on government support.

As clarified above, Romney reaches out on social media much less than Obama, he rarely, if ever, participates in popular culture mainstays such as talk shows or street art, and seems more out of touch than ever with the attitude of the average voter.

Beyond speaking ill of almost half the country, Romney solidified his cultural obscurity when he stressed that young people who want to start a business or go to college should “borrow money if you have to from your parents.”

While Romney is stuck trying to shed his cultural image as an overly-privileged candidate who looks down upon those who see things differently than he does from his affluent perch, Obama is busy employing references to reality television shows such as “Extreme Makeover”: Debate Edition" to highlight his opponents’ seeming reversal of policy in the first Presidential Debate.

Obama’s greatest advantage over Romney is that his “Change” has emancipated popular culture from being a mere form of mass entertainment looked down upon by much of the political spectrum, to an avenue for a leader to re-engage with his citizens over the important issues affecting the average voter. And if a reinvigoration of the culture of democracy in a country famous for its original populous movements does not deserve a re-election in 2012, what does?

After all, Obama’s cultural capital is unique in a contemporary president, and it is no surprise that Romney the traditionalist is struggling to keep up. Perhaps much of Obama’s cultural successes come down to what American sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed to be culture’s central liberal truth, on rare occasions “politics can change culture and save it from itself.”

Chavez, Castro, Putin, and the Muslim Brotherhood have endorsed Obama too.

Quoted from Shadow

Chavez, Castro, Putin, and the Muslim Brotherhood have endorsed Obama too.

The unabomber endorses Romney.