Obama's Dilemma

U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney took part in a debate last Tuesday in the style of a “popular assembly,” in which the questions were posed by audience members. Obama spoke in the context of a severe crisis. Since unemployment in the U.S. has remained very high, at more than 8 percent, it’s very difficult for him to convince voters of the advantages of endorsing him.

It’s not that the Republicans’ record is clean. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The current crisis is the result of mistakes made by George W. Bush in various key areas of the economy. The most notable was the deregulation that completely altered the rules of play in the mortgage market. It allowed people with insufficient resources to sign adjustable-rate mortgage agreements. The economic prosperity in which the U.S. lived between 2002-2006 was, as we now all know, a house of cards. Once it fell in 2007, it nearly brought the whole world down with it.

Romney has tried by all means to act as if he and his party were completely unrelated to George Bush Jr. Neither of the Bush ex-presidents attended the Republican convention, rightly in order to prevent Romney from being seen as Bush’s heir. In fact, in the first debate, the ex-governor of Massachusetts was able to completely separate himself from that legacy. Although in the second debate, one of the participants asked Romney directly how he was different from Bush, and Romney was not able to offer a clear answer.

The candidates still have one debate left. During that debate, as much as in the one that took place this week, Obama’s main problem is that he needs to be very careful in how he confronts Romney’s accusations, insinuations and, in some cases, blatant lies. Obama has to be wary that any one of his responses could be interpreted or pegged with the U.S. pop culture stereotype of the “angry black man.”

The idea of the “angry black man,” as in other racist myths in the United States, assumes that all black males are loud, angry and that they prey on white people; therefore, the whites need to stick together to control such a threat. References to the “angry black man” can be found on many Internet sites (http://bit.ly/AngryBlackMan1, http://bit.ly/AngryBlackMan2). Although Obama wanted to be more emphatic in his responses to Romney, he had to be very careful in order to avoid being seen as a danger. And it’s not just racial. This brings us to the fact that four years after taking office, about one-fifth of U.S. citizens still believe that Obama is Muslim (http://bit.ly/ObamaMusulman).

Just compare the informal way in which current Vice President Joe Biden and his aspiring successor, Paul Ryan, traded accusations and low blows. It stands to show that race is still a heavy issue in U.S. politics. While Biden and Ryan can mock, discredit and make all kinds of insinuations toward each other without shocking anybody, the situation between Obama and Romney has changed from the one four years ago between Obama and John McCain.

Obama can no longer present himself as the herald of a new age. He represents, for better or worse, an administration with a record of mistakes and successes. In reality, the situation regarding economic matters is very difficult. In addition to the crisis in the U.S., he has to face the effects of the crisis in Europe and even Japan’s struggle after the tragedy of Fukushima caused by the 2011 tsunami.

In spite of this, Obama has revealed Romney as being insensitive. In his final message, Obama reminded everyone of the way that Romney spoke disrespectfully of 47 percent of people in the U.S., which, as he said, are “dependent on government.” Days later, Romney took back his words and apologized for the way in which he spoke of his compatriots (http://bit.ly/Romney47porciento).

The second U.S. presidential debate will not be a watershed moment. It remains to be seen what will occur in the third and final debate that will, among other topics, focus on U.S. foreign policy. The truth is that neither Mexico nor Latin America has held a place in the campaign. Perhaps it’s to avoid the topic of immigration, something on which Romney has not sold his stance to Republicans like McCain and Bush Sr., who are more of the mind that the U.S. should keep a flexible immigration policy.

As dependent as Mexico is in this globalized world, the U.S. elections affect us here for better or worse.