Well, it looks like it’s going to be quite a game. 48 hours before Tuesday’s momentous election, the most reliable polls in the U.S. predict a tough battle to become the tenant of the White House for the next four years. Obama moves between having a leading edge and drawing a tie. His rival, Romney, has come back from the drawbacks he had over the summer, but no poll has him in the lead; at the most, some polls predict a tie.
The complex U.S. electoral system seems to indicate that, this year, the state that will decide it all is Ohio, where it is not at all certain that Obama will get the win that analysts have been taking for granted. However, despite this virtual tie, no one believes that Romney can win. Why? Since 1951, when a maximum of eight years in office was approved, there has been a higher incidence of presidents that have run for a second term and won than otherwise. Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr. stayed in office for eight years, while Carter and Bush Sr. did not achieve re-election. Another president, Nixon, also won the nomination twice, but was forced to resign during his second term.
Surely, Obama's personality, which contrasts with Romney’s, will also help to reinforce the opinion that he will remain in office for another four years. However, Romney knows that the president’s options are very different this year than that fateful night in 2008 when Obama won a crushing victory in the elections, sweeping seven points over McCain and nearly doubling his electoral votes in the different states of the Union.
PUES sí: al final, todo apunta a que va a haber partido. Cuarenta y ocho horas antes de las trascendentales elecciones del martes, las encuestas más fiables en Estados Unidos vaticinan una reñida batalla para ser el inquilino de la Casa Blanca los próximos cuatro años. Obama se mueve entre una ligera ventaja y el empate. Su rival, Romney, ha recortado buena parte de la desventaja que llevaba a la vuelta del verano, pero ninguna encuesta le da ganador, y a lo máximo que se atreven es a darle un empate con el presidente. El complejo sistema electoral norteamericano parece desplazar este año el fiel de la balanza hacia el estado de Ohio, donde tampoco está del todo claro que Obama obtenga una victoria que hace muy poco los analistas daban por descontada. Pero, sin embargo, nadie cree en la victoria de Romney pese a la situación virtual de empate. ¿Por qué? En primer lugar, porque desde 1951, cuando se aprobó un máximo de ocho años en el poder, hay más precedentes de presidentes que se han presentado a un segundo mandato y lo ganaron que de lo contrario. Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton y Bush hijo estuvieron ocho años, y Carter y Bush padre no alcanzaron la reelección. Por en medio, otro presidente, Nixon, ganó la nominación dos veces, pero no lo completó porque tuvo que dimitir. Seguramente, la personalidad de Obama y su contraste con Romney también ayudan a reforzar la idea de que el presidente seguirá cuatro años más. Romney, sin embargo, sabe que sus opciones son muy diferentes a las de la aciaga noche del 2008 en que Obama arrasó a McCain adelantándole más de siete puntos y prácticamente doblando sus votos electorales en los diferentes estados de la Unión.
This post appeared on the front page as a direct link to the original article with the above link
.
[T]he Republican Party is now a coalition of religious conservatives, the social and economic right, and libertarian oligarchs. For their part, the Democrats have become a broad “tent” uniting liberals, moderates, and socialists.
Trump’s threat is purely economic, employing the power of coercion and open blackmail, to keep a ‘servant’ perpetually under subjugation from attaining economic independence.
While Trump is a powerful force within the Republican Party, his polarising presence is creating substantial challenges for the party in appealing to a broad enough coalition to secure consistent, nationwide victories beyond his core base.
The reconciliation culminated in Al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House last week, the first by a Syrian president, and the announcement that Syria had become the 90th member of the US-led Global Coalition Against Daesh.