The US presidential election is two months away, yet there is no front-runner. In this year’s election the main issues are unemployment, inflation, tax cuts, budget deficit, and housing, so that the economy will determine who is going to be the next President of the United States. When Americans go to cast their ballots in November, they are going to vote for the candidate who in their opinion will be the best at creating jobs and growing the US economy.
Who will move America forward and who will help America compete in a global economy especially with the rise of the Asian economy? President Obama is defending his economic policies of his four-year term in office, while blaming the entire problem on George W. Bush. During his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, Governor Mitt Romney, on the other hand, pledged to Americans that he has a plan to create 12 million jobs. I am not sure how that could be possible because no President in history has been able to grow the American economy by creating 12 million jobs in four years, Romney would like to make America energy independent, by 2020.
It is a going to be a hard debate for both candidates to persuade the American public and especially the middle class because there is class warfare in America, and there is justifiable anger at the decline of much of the middle and working class. President Obama enjoys support from the interests that benefit from government debt and bail out like the president and financial tycoon during the GM bail out, Steven Rattner, who has argued that the company is too big to fail. Former President Clinton remarked about who the winner will be, “It’s the stupid economy stupid. “ Governor Romney claims there should be immediate cuts in taxes and government spending and that the private sector should be actively engaged in fixing the economy. Romney says he would repeal the Obamacare Healthcare reform introduced by President Obama. Furthermore, Romney would like to make America energy independent; therefore, he would like to invest in every type of energy. On the other hand, President Obama would like to invest in charter education, infrastructure, and research and would like to build a bridge between America’s human and industrial resources, such as investing in renewable sources of energy and helping the environment. The problem is that President Obama’s long-term plan for making the American economy to grow to build a bridge and infrastructure does not answer the problem of debt and deficit. This deficit problem will not be solved in two or four years or by building bridges; those ideas could help create some short term jobs to prevent deep recession but are not going to help grow the economy.
That is why I believe foreign policy is also important in these elections for many reasons. Asia is going to become an especially hot topic in the election debates in the coming days. China and India are emerging as economic and political heavyweights, and while America has a huge deficit, China holds a trillion dollars in hard currency reserves, India’s high technology sector is growing, and both countries, recognized as nuclear powers, are developing. The two candidates have two different approaches on how to limit the impact of Chinese expansion on the economy. That is why in the US the entertainment sectors like Hollywood are still supporting Obama, while the business sectors like Wal-Mart and Wall Street are fully supporting Governor Romney. I do not think President Obama can energize this campaign like his campaign motto “Change” and “Yes we can “ did in 2008, because neither ever happened, and now Obama is using “Forward” as his campaign motto. I do not think American voters will move forward without jobs.
Even though the political wisdom is that the economy, not foreign policy, will chose the next President of the United States, if the following events happen in between now and November, those can change the US election. First, since we are living in a global village, and we are more connected than ever, what if Greece defaults on its debt and leaves the euro zone, which could spread to southern Europe and put it in a global recession again. That will not be good for the US or for Europe and could slow down the US’s GDP growth. These events would make Obama‘s position hard because he argues that the US is going in the right direction at this point. Europe is still not looking good. Second, the United States has not suffered a major terrorist attack during the Obama administration, and President Obama has killed some high profile terrorists through drone strikes, including the killing of Osama bin Laden as one of his big achievements in the war on terror. Also, during the Obama administration he has killed more people with drones than George W Bush, but this has gone largely unnoticed; however, another major attack on American soil could change the whole perception of the voters. Third, what if Iran continues with its nuclear development program and diplomacy fails? There is a chance that Israel could use military action because seemingly the only way to halt Iran’s nuclear advances is for Israel or America to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. That could push up gas prices in the US to more than $5 per gallon and jeopardize the country’s economic recovery. Actually both presidential candidates believe that all options on the tables. However, Romney is more aggressive than President Obama, but I personally believe that Iran is not the only country that is a threat to Israeli and American interests. I think Obama’s biggest mistake is that he holds up Turkey as a model of a moderate, democratic Muslim country. But at the same time he ignores Turkey’s gross human rights violations against the 20 million Kurds living in Turkey. Turkey is going to be the biggest threat to Israeli and American interests in the region because Turkey is playing a double game in that arena.
America is still trying to digest changes in the Middle East, but the only way to reestablish stability in the Middle East at this point is to have fair and balanced political and economic reform. There are several differences between the candidates’ policy positions in key areas of foreign policies on the Greater Middle East projects, terrorism, Russia, China, nuclear issues, and Fundamentalism. When President Obama behaved as if the Jewish settlement issue represented a greater threat to the Middle East peace than Iran’s nuclear program, he showed lack of discernment. During his speech in 2009, in Cairo, Egypt, he declared that the US does not accept the legitimacy of the Israeli settlements. Obama agreed that pre- 1967 borders should be the starting point for a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. This means that Israel has to release control of Jerusalem and its holy sites and to annex the more than 280,000 Jews into a new Palestinian state. On a Middle East Trip to Cairo, Egypt, and Turkey, he did not visit Israel. According to the White House release on Tuesday, President Obama would not meet Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli Prime Minister’s US visit late this month because Israel wants a tougher US policy against Iran, a policy that caused the US- Israel relation to worsen. President Obama, however, believes that the United States would be in a better position with a distance between America and Israel. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, President Obama criticized Governor Romney for having a Cold War time warp view of foreign policy. On the other hand, Governor Romney visited Israel to show his support to the Jewish people and sent a message that if he is elected as President, he will not isolate Israel
Overall all, we have two months to go until November, and anything can happen from violence in Syria to security in Afghanistan or to water conflicts between the Asian countries. The killing of American Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya could emerge as a potential game changer for the American voters, like what happened in the 2008 presidential election, Everyone thought that the war in Iraq would be the main issue in the campaign, but then the global economic crisis hit and became top on the agenda, so it is early to rule out events in politics. At the same time Governor Romney’s economic agenda is a more viable plan for job creation for America. Under President Obama, America lost its credibility around the world, domestically and internationally. When November comes, many Americans will ask themselves which candidate really is going to move America forward, create more jobs, bring back American credibility, and leave themselves better off in four years than they are today? The answer is not Obama.