If citizens of other nations could vote, it should be Obama by a mile! But Obama’s many supporters abroad have wondered uneasily whether it just might go the other way. Recent polling was suggesting a cliffhanger in the swing states that will determine the outcome. I now sense that superstorm Sandy will save Obama, but it could still be close.
This is a vital election for Australia, as we begin to digest what the reshaping global power balance in the Asian Century means for us. The emergent decline of American global hegemony forces Australia to move beyond the easy simplicities of lockstep strategic alliance with the US combined with highly profitable favoured economic ties with a resurgent China.
As the US feels the psychological pangs of power contraction, Australia needs to help her weather her midlife crisis. It would be easier with Obama than Romney. Obama – and perhaps Hilary Clinton after 2016 – are in a better position to use the power of the presidency to help guide the US through this transition because they have a better grasp of the challenge for America of a rapidly changing world.
Those disappointed in Obama’s performance in office since 2008 underestimate the huge constraints on him. These include an often hostile Congress, a deep-rooted public belief that the world exists to serve US interests and a false ideological consciousness of the proper roles of the state and private sectors.
Obama proved his strength and patriotism through the symbolically vital removal of Osama bin Laden. On this, we now know that, though a naked Osama bin Laden with his hands up in surrender would not have been shot, killing him was the presidentially approved plan in every other possible contingency. For most Americans, this was justice seen to be done.
Obama’s evident empathy towards the plight of poorer people in an economy in trouble has been reaffirmed by this week’s storm. Memories of the federally mishandled Hurricane Katrina of 2005 were not far beneath the surface, as shown by the Republican Governor of New Jersey's unstinting praise for Obama’s role in this week’s crisis. The Governor said all that needs to be said. Obama is too shrewd a politician to leave any room for suggestions that he might be politically exploiting the crisis. But the suspension of campaigning plays to his advantage.
Romney has been forced in recent months to turn turtle, presenting himself as the candidate of change and dynamism, against Obama as a tired, ineffective status quo candidate in office who has done little.
Romney has his own troubles. The Republicans remain deeply split between tea-party right-wing ideology and what is left of the moderate (read McCain) centre. Romney finally emerged as the least bad choice this year from a field of ideological extremists and the mercurial Newt Gingrich. He has to calculate every policy nuance against his uneasy coalition of less than enthusiastic backers and financiers. No wonder he sounds and looks so unsure of his ground on many issues.
The matter of Obama’s race is still lurking there in white lower-income voting booths in the swing states — in the Midwest and Florida. There are those who will vote for the white man, regardless of their real interest.
The economy is not good for the underemployed or jobless poor. In the slow recovery from the GFC, jobs are expanding but rising GNP has mostly benefited the super-rich. Life is no easier for embattled middle-class Americans. But it seems likely that voters will reject Romney’s strategy of getting the state out of the way and encouraging entrepreneurship. These are no answer to deep-rooted problems of structural transition.
America remains the centre of world technological progress and marketing innovation. As Chinese and Indian wages and living standards rise, global competitiveness is creeping back to the more traditional areas of US industry. If America does not lose its nerve over the next decade, it will, I believe, weather the transition to a more secure, self-sufficient country that can maintain public living standards despite increasingly challenging world markets for its products and services. America remains rich in natural and human resources.
Voter apathy is, as always, a vital issue in an election where voting is optional. The challenge for Democrats has always been to get out the vote — especially now when the Republican Right have lifted their game in mobilising votes.
Romney’s verbal aggression towards China is risky. But here too, Obama seems to have carved out safe ground with American electors, with his much-publicised ‘pivoting’ of US strategic weight towards Asia. Through the Obama and Gillard speeches in Canberra on 17 November 2011 regarding upgraded US basing in Darwin, Obama established new markers of strategic firmness towards China that left no room for Republicans to accuse him of weakness.
These are the issues. They are clear, but the outcome is not, and I won’t try to call it. We only need wait a few more days to see if Americans choose a weak and therefore dangerous new president over an incumbent who failed to meet unrealistic expectations.
Tony Kevin is a former Australian ambassador to Cambodia and Poland.