By Gideon Rachman
“Weak.” “Apologist.” Those two words are repeated endlessly in the Republican party’s attack on Barack Obama, as it tries to persuade voters that the US president is not worthy of another term as commander-in-chief.
Great expectations for Aung San Suu Kyi and the Obama administration’s healthcare bill
Gideon Rachman is joined by FT correspondents to discuss the great expectations for Aung San Suu Kyi in the upcoming by-election in Myanmar. They also examine the US Supreme Court case that will determine the fate of the Obama administration’s healthcare reform.
Presented by Gideon Rachman, with Gwen Robinson and Alan Rappeport
Produced by Amie Tsang and Serena Tarling
Inside Obama’s re-election headquarters
As the Republican primary season drags on, the Obama re-election campaign has fired up its engines. This week on Luce Talk, Edward Luce, the FT’s chief US commentator, takes us inside the Chicago headquarters and speaks with Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.
Anybody following a US presidential election is likely to be hit with a blizzard of figures: polling numbers, economic growth statistics, projected budget deficits and the like. But, to my mind, some of the most interesting figures are demographic and generational.
This blog post, by the excellent Thomas Edsall, makes some very interesting points about the make-up of the Republican electorate. In the GOP’s South Carolina primary, 98% of those who voted were white: this in a state where nearly 28% of the population is black. Republican voters are also relatively old: 72% in South Carolina were over the age of 45.
In 2008 Davis Guggenheim made a biographical video of Barack Obama based on hope – the young senator’s lack of experience was studiously avoided. This time round, in Guggenheim’s The Road We’ve Travelled, which, at 17 minutes, is almost twice as long as his first effort, experience is Mr Obama’s chief selling point. It barely even needs a script to press home, although Tom Hanks does a soothing narration. All that is required is to glance at the shots of the youthful president-elect in 2008 versus the grizzled man seeking re-election in 2012.
No matter how many “cheesy grits” Mitt Romney professed to love, or “y’all”s he threw out, the deep south gave him two custard pies on Tuesday night with third place finishes in Alabama and Mississippi. In neither state was he expected to win. But to come behind a nearly-moribund Newt Gingrich in both was nevertheless a humiliation.
And so, once again, this tortured Republican race has reminded us what makes it so peculiar: almost everybody still bets on Mr Romney getting the nomination; but the point at which it is likely to pay off keeps getting pushed over the horizon. The slim chance that Mr Romney will in fact fail to win the crown also gets a little less slim with each passing setback.
Every time a British prime minister visits Washington, he knows that he will be measured against sepia photos of previous “special relationships” between British prime ministers and US presidents: Churchill and Roosevelt, Thatcher and Reagan, Blair and Bush. So David Cameron both needs to emphasise his closeness to Barack Obama – but not lay it on too thick, lest it sound desperate or “slavish”, to use a word that Cameron once employed in opposition.
It certainly looks as if Obama is going out of his way to give Cameron face. There is the specially-arranged trip on Airforce One to go and watch a basketball game in Ohio. There is a state banquet. (The British keep having to emphasise that this is not a state visit, only the Queen does those.) There is the joint article in the Washington Post, emphasising the “essential” nature of the relationship between the UK and the US. (The word “special” is worn thin through over-use.) And there is the tribute from the American ambassador in London, who claimed in an interview, given just before the Camerons’ arrival, that President Obama’s first call in an international crisis, is to No 10 Downing Street.
While Mitt Romney took the day with wins in 6 states, the Santorum and Gingrich victories in the more conservative states solidify the fractious nature of the GOP electorate, says Ed Luce. The only clarity gained from Tuesday contest is that the GOP primary is far from over.
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