All against Obama

“If Iran wants to build the atomic bomb, let them build it. What does it matter to us?” With this discourse, Ron Paul won the vote of one of five inhabitants of Iowa (21.4 percent), a rural state of the Midwest where it is difficult to separate international politics from prejudice. In the inaugural election of the conservative primaries in the United States, the Texan congressman was beaten by lawyer Rick Santorum (24.5 percent), whose entire concept of democracy resolves around the bombing of Iran. Poised on the winner’s pedestal, although with only eight votes to his advantage (24.6 percent), was Mitt Romney, the Mormon businessman who as governor of Massachusetts implemented a European-style health system that was a source of inspiration for the reviled Obamacare. Newt Gingrich, the favorite in RealClearPolitics’ polls at the start of hostilities, is hardly spoken of now, having come in fourth in Iowa (13.3 percent) and New Hampshire (9.4 percent). Michele Bachmann, undisputed winner of the first debate between candidates and leader in the polls way back around August, took second-last position (5 percent) and retired from the race. Only one candidate found less support, the former ambassador to Beijing, Jon Huntsman (0.6 percent).

The fall from grace of Bachmann, a Sarah Palin-lite lacking the affability of the former Alaskan governor, is paradigmatic of a long-term trend. Rick Perry’s descent into Hades marks the same tendency. The governor of Texas shot blazing into the race and took up the position of electoral favorite until, one innocuous day, he showed a certain understanding toward the descendants of illegal immigrants. This complicity with an important portion of the lone star state’s electorate earned him the repudiation of the conservative mass in the rest of the nation, situating him in fifth place (10.3 percent) at the start of the competition.

After the prologue in Iowa and rehearsal in New Hampshire (celebrated last Tuesday and delivering victory once again to Romney, with 39.4 percent of the votes), the remaining 48 states will place their votes, in dribs and drabs, for Obama’s rival for the White House. The birthing of this candidate will take the next eight months until, finally, he is anointed among Florida’s oranges on 30 August, at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Here, the delegates and super-delegates sent by voters will gather to ratify the will of their respective states. The person who gains the support of at least 1,143 of these delegates will win.

For its part, the Democratic Party will not officially swear Obama in as candidate until the week of 3 September in Charlotte, North Carolina. The president is exempt from the onerous chore of contesting the primaries, as no valiant soul has challenged him to a duel in the polls. Although New Hampshire’s ballot papers listed a dozen aspirants to the party of the donkey, none of them count with the kind of notoriety likely to inconvenience the current commander-in-chief of the United States. And so Obama gained 81.9 percent of the votes, 45,008. He was trailed at an infinite distance by the writer Ed Cowan, who gained 859 votes (1.6 percent) and by the anarchist Vermin Supreme, with 781 (1.4 percent). No other contestant passed 1 percent.

Faced with such competition, the president has focused all of his energy on encouraging economic recovery and attacking the Republican Party. Hillary Clinton has, by omission, allowed this strategy. A notable sector of the Democratic Party urged her to compete against Obama, given the president’s accumulated discredit and the memory of the balanced competition between the two in 2008. Although not habitual, in the democratic history of the United States there have been cases in which heavyweight rivals have challenged the commander-in-chief in the primaries, even if none of them were defeated. All registered voters in the nation of the stars and stripes are convened in the primaries: to participate one must simply register with either the Democratic or Republican Party. In certain states, such as New Hampshire, where more than 315,000 citizens voted, independents can participate without first registering.

Budgetary Battle

The presidential elections, by obligatory tradition, will not be celebrated until the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, that is, the sixth day of the eleventh month. Faced with such a long battle, the campaign budget is fancied fundamental. And there, in the bulge of his wallet, resides the real appeal of Romney. The millionaire, former Massachusetts governor, one-time CEO of Bain and Company, co-founder of Bain Capital and president of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics Organizing Committee in 2002 has amassed more than $40 million to fund his journey to the White House. Important banks stand out amongst his donors. This is more than the total raised by all of his rivals together (curiously, pacifist Ron Paul has obtained the majority of his donations from members of the Army), although it is notably less than the numbers managed by Obama. The president has almost reached $100,000,000 and, after an electoral campaign of a year and a half and without needing to invest a single quarter in the primaries, looks set to reach $1 billion in political donations for the first time in history. Universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Columbia, along with Californian technology companies, are top donors.

This faction, together with an army of Internet activists and social networkers prefer the current president before any Republican rival. Romney, once again, would come the closest to victory (he would lose against Obama 46.7 to 45.2 percent), followed by Paul (47.9 to 41.1 percent), Santorum (48 to 40.7 percent), Gingrich (50.2 to 41.4 percent), Huntsman (48 to 38.3 percent) and Perry (50.9 to 39.1 percent).

The Republican Reserve Squad, 2016

Paradoxically, and as a display of discontent with the president, the citizenry would prefer to vote for the Republican Party itself (rather than a particular candidate) than for Barack Obama (43.6 to 42.6 percent). This demonstrates the disconnect between voters’ support for the Republican ideology compared with their support for the conservative candidates on offer: Many party icons have preferred to hold off until 2016 to make a clear grab at the presidency. They include Chris Christie, governor of New Jersey; Marco Rubio, a Hispanic senator in Florida; and another offspring of the Bush dynasty, Jeb, former governor of Florida. Sarah Palin, in an epitome of the feint and dodge, withdrew at the last minute, preferring her current idyllic position: Her television appearances and prolific book career bring her around $30 million a year.

Leaving the Democrats to one side, Romney has taken the lead both in fund raising and in the primaries. Since 1980, no Republican candidate has gained the presidential nomination without at least winning Iowa or New Hampshire. The former Massachusetts governor, a Mormon, tries to soften suspicion of his creed with the classic image of a happy family. So the candidate exhibits his 42 years of marriage to Anne as a guarantee of his faithfulness and reliability, although his wife, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, is rarely seen with him. The couple’s five sons have become known as The Romney Brothers and are political activists. But when it comes to offspring, Rick Santorum takes the cake. The former Pennsylvanian senator, who has barely raised $4 million, bases his campaign on his seven children. A supporter of home schooling, and consequently of cutting public subsidies for schools and universities, Santorum has been married to Karen Garver for 21 years and defines himself as “an authentic conservative”. The youngest of his offspring, Bella, three years old, suffers a rare genetic disease known as Edwards syndrome, and the candidate refers to his little one in each speech as his “true inspiration and source of happiness”.

Jon Huntsman, too, is linked to the Mormon faith. The former governor of the state of Utah and ex-ambassador to Beijing has raised some $2.5 million and finished third in the New Hampshire primaries with an economically liberal yet morally orthodox discourse. Huntsman also has seven young ones, the two youngest adopted in China and India. His three eldest daughters, the Jon2012Girls, Liddy, Abby and Marie Anne, are tall, blond and of undoubted Valkyrie beauty. They’ve generated considerable excitement for their father’s campaign through their parodic videos on YouTube.

A Favorite in the Wings

Another example of faithfulness is Ron Paul, who has been united in matrimony to Carol Wells since 1957: they have five children and 18 grandchildren. The Texan congressman, with a political career spanning 38 years, during which he never voted for a single tax increase or any increase in the powers of the State, has published, during his campaign, the Ron Paul Family Cookbook, which includes recipes “to warm your kitchen and your heart”, photos of the entire family and an essay by Carol on the American Dream. His son Rand is a senator of Kentucky and an important figure in the tea party.

This citizens’ movement, instigator of a return to the principles and values of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, has shown clear divisions in its preferences, ceding influence following the zenith of power achieved in the mid-term elections last year. Nevertheless, the withdrawal of Bachmann and Herman Cain, and the decline of Perry, could direct its support toward Paul, whose radical libertarian position (he supports total deregulation, including of drugs and prostitution, but not abortion) generates more than a little suspicion.

The family life of the candidates has been shown to be fundamental in the land of the stars and stripes to attract support or, at least, to not lose it. Herman Cain, Afro-American businessman and one of the favorites, had to resign halfway through the race following the revelation of his multiple past infidelities. Cain, a fast-food magnate (Romney, too, had a hand in the creation of multinational Domino’s Pizza) with no political experience and, consequently, the support of the tea party, proposed a catchy regulation: the Nine-Nine-Nine, which aimed to fix most taxes at 9 percent. His past exploded while he was leading the polls, in no small part thanks to the investigative efforts of his rivals’ campaigns.

Opposing Discourse

Newt Gingrich is also famous for his extramarital flings. The former House speaker in Congress, a sure bet for the economy, previously paid the political price for his forbidden romances, although his recent conversion to Catholicism — influenced by his wife Callista, who sings in a religious choir in Washington — has redeemed his romantic trajectory and repositioned his “feelings” on top of his shining curriculum in the Capitol. In the last weeks, he has been seen to cry in the memory of the disease that killed his mother, tears that humanized the granite exterior of this cost-cutter and budget-buster. Gingrich has even placed himself in the vanguard of the fight against abortion, with a publicity campaign in that accuses Romney of having governed Massachusetts with policies favoring the termination of pregnancies and of having changed his stance at the last moment.

Let’s not forget that Romney censored, at the last minute, the pornographic channels of the hotel chain Marriott, a strong supporter of Romney’s and highly dependent on the entrepreneurial framework he champions, just before he postulated himself for the Republican nomination in 2008. Things as they were, Gingrich entered the primaries in first place in the polls, although his results in Iowa and New Hampshire have sent Romney surging forth and relegated Gingrich to second place. His campaign hardly exceeds $6 million and he has a certain difficulty attracting donations, although nothing that a victory in one of the primaries wouldn’t resolve. The South Carolina primary on January 21, which will send a significant number of delegates, will be fundamental to certifying the victory of Romney or the eruption of a more entertaining alternative.