I’m not sure what it is, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there is something I didn’t really like about Rick Santorum. Nothing serious just a niggling doubt. But he’s gone anyway, so let’s forget about him. So it looking like it’s Romney Vs Obama in November. I quite like Obama, but I’m not sure he has done enough in these four years to get the American public behind him to give him four more. Stranger things have happened though, in fact they did, eight years ago when the American People, having not voted for George W at the previous election gave him the job anyway, then realised what a mistake that had been, and actually did vote for him the second time around! Bizarre!
As they say over there ‘go figure’.
On the surface of it, American politics don’t matter here – oh but they do. We seem to have had a succession of Prime Ministers who have been at the beck and call of the top man in the White House, none more so than Tony Blair, and look how things turned out when he threw his hat into the ring with George W.
American is a country that is rich, but getting poorer, and powerful, but getting more powerful. It is the leading power in the world, and we, it seems, have to do what the American leader wants. David Cameron is showing signs of following in the footsteps of his predecessors, that little P.R. stunt of a few weeks ago shows that, I just wonder how quick he would be to line up behind an American President who wanted to go and bomb some poor little country?
Here in the UK we have no vote in the American Presidential Election, but we are all bound by the result. Barrack, or Mitt, will be pulling our strings from next January and there is not a damn thing we can do to stop it. That is scary.
There has long been a suggestion that although Romney would win the Primaries, he will not ultimately gain the nomination, as a ‘surprise’ party would emerge. And that is still the suspicion in many quarters so I wouldn’t assume that its going to be a straight Obama v Romney at this stage, however likely that may seem.
Romney always seems to me to be VERY shallow. That said I thought that about Reagan and he turned out well. Eventually.
I think we disregard Obama’s achievements too readily, especially as he has constantly had to continue to battle with the American ‘Establishment’.
For me he is the one politician that I trust to sort out the biggest threat STILL to humanity – the stockpile of thousands upon thousands of nuclear weapons. Its frightening how we have become so blase about this.
The risk of conflict may have diminished, but the risk of accident remains – and the hackers are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Since the end of the Cold War, we have turned a blind eye to the nuclear stockpile at our peril. Obama is the man with the desire to address this.