Divided Republicans

The Republican campaign has gotten under way. Last week, seven of the party’s presidential candidates clashed in a televised debate.

The American presidential election will be held in November 2012, but the first battle is played out during the primary elections at the beginning of the year, in which a challenger to President Barack Obama will be selected.

The starting field has cleared. A number of prominent names have chosen not to run, such as the social conservative Mike Huckabee. Others seem to be on their way off the stage, like veteran player Newt Gingrich, whose campaign machinery collapsed a few weeks ago when most of his staff left.

Sarah Palin’s patriotically flavored “One Nation Bus Tour” at first caused speculation that she might be planning to run, but so far she hasn’t given a definite answer, which seems to indicate the opposite. In spite of that, recent polls have her as the second most popular Republican candidate.

According to the polls, the most popular candidate is still Mitt Romney, who also scored the highest marks from viewers after the debate. He is a level-headed pragmatist with an appeal to moderate voters, which according to polls gives him a chance to do well if it comes down to a choice between him and Obama. Two other candidates that many serious commentators estimate could give Obama a match are Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman. But Pawlenty made a lackluster impression in the debate, and Huntsman, who didn’t appear, has the odds against him. Though he is competent and has a good reputation, he is neither well known enough or conservative enough to win the Republican nomination.

Mitt Romney strengthened his position through the TV debate. But so did Michele Bachmann who, like Sarah Palin, has the backing of the Republican right wing, the so-called tea party movement. Her chances are considered small, since her relatively extreme position on the right wing alienates many voters — even Republican ones. A strong campaign by Bachmann or Palin may even add to the division within the Republican Party. Moderate voters can’t imagine either Bachmann or Palin as president, and the tea party movement dislikes moderate candidates like Mitt Romney.

What’s interesting from a European perspective is that none of the candidates seems to advocate an aggressive American foreign policy. During the TV debate, some held the view that other countries should be left alone to handle their problems themselves, while others thought that military efforts in troubled areas like Afghanistan should be limited. President Obama wants the other NATO countries to take a greater responsibility, a point that was made by Robert Gates, resigning American secretary of defense, in a recent speech in Brussels.

The next presidential election in America will be about the economy and the jobs. Sixty-two percent of the voters feel that the country is heading in the wrong direction. Consequently, Obama can’t be certain of victory, even though he is seen as the likely winner at present.

Regardless of the outcome, Europe can expect American pressure to contribute more to NATO efforts, in critical situations like the one in Libya for example, to continue.