Mitt Romney and Barack Obama are neck and neck in the current polls but it is the current President who will win the election for these three reasons.
With Europe facing economic meltdown, the only context in which Barack Obama is likely to feature in UK news this weekend is in relation to the emergency G8 meeting. Pivotal as that may be in terms of saving Western economies, however, Obama's overseas diplomacy is unlikely to impact his bid for re-election. Rather, it is domestic issues, concerning two very different visions of America's future, will be the backdrop to November's contest.
Current head-to-head polls suggest it's too close to call. Just as Obama and Mitt Romney solidly poll in the mid-40s, the President's approval rating is consistently around 47%. These numbers reflect the stark and growing divide between left and right, Democrats and Republicans. This election will be decided by a small section of independent swing voters, perhaps no more than 5% of the electorate. When it comes to these voters, the following three issues are likely to prove pivotal and they all look like playing into Obama's hands.
The Economy
James Carville's famous maxim that "It's the economy, stupid" resonates as strongly as ever in a land ravaged by the Great Recession, where unemployment remains high and the middle-class are struggling. Although progress has been made in recent months and some surveys point to growing optimism, the economy remains the biggest barrier to Obama's re-election. Moreover if Romney has a 'USP', business acumen is it. The challenger's chance hinges on his ability to convince Americans that they would fare better electing a successful businessman than a professional politician.
There are two substantial problems with the Romney strategy though. Firstly, where Republicans see Romney's business career as a plus, Democrats eye an opportunity to attack his character and agenda. Far from being the job-creator America needs, Romney's critics say his private equity firm Bain Capital asset-stripped US industry, enriching its owners at the wider expense of the country. We've already had a taste of this emerging narrative during the Republican campaign when Newt Gingrich released a scathing 'King of Bain' video against his rival. Where Gingrich tentatively stepped, the well-oiled Obama machine will march in, all guns blazing. This week saw another Romney/Bain negative ad and @BarackObama himself has been firing out attack-tweets like "Load a steel mill up with debt, bankrupt it, and then walk away with millions: that's #RomneyEconomics--and it's wrong."
Indeed, Romney's past fits the Left's wider critique of Republican ideology. Obama regularly accuses the GOP of wanting to take America back to the failed Bush-era policies that caused the Great Recession. A principal dividing line between the two parties concerns the Democrat's desire to reverse Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires, which has been blocked by Republicans in Congress who favour spending cuts. This will allow Obama to cast the Republicans as led by a billionaire asset-stripper who wants to award himself a tax cut, while destroying popular social programmes like Medicare and Medicaid. After three years as the incumbent on the defensive, Obama must be relishing the chance to turn the tables on his right-wing tormentors.
Culture Wars
A second problem lies in the fact that, while he wants to focus on the economy, Romney can't help being dragged into less fertile electoral territory by elements in his own party, who would rather fight the election on culture wars. As we saw throughout a bitter nomination process, Republican mood music is increasingly engineered by extreme social conservatives, the Tea Party and populist shock jocks like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. Conventional wisdom tells us that you don't win elections being associated with the 'birther' movement or extremists who call women supporting contraception 'sluts'. Even on gay marriage, an area where culture wars have previously worked for Republicans, polling suggests the US electorate is gradually becoming more Liberal.
Personality
It's probably safe to assume that most Americans have a fixed view on Obama by now. Incumbency may have taken the shine off but he remains a supreme orator and his approval ratings are respectable given the tough times. Besides the minority that follow the primary season in detail, most will know much less about Romney. Past experience doesn't bode well for the challenger. Although he won his party's candidacy, the indecisive manner of victory merely confirmed the weaknesses that emerged during a disastrous 2008 campaign. Despite an unprecedented, overwhelming advantage in terms of money and organisation, no-hopers like Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul repeatedly took him to the wire.
Romney has two big problems on the personality front. First, he cannot disguise an elite background and struggles to connect. A classic example during primary season was when he told some NASCAR fans that, while he didn't follow the sport closely, some of his best friends owned teams. Secondly, his career has been plagued by opportunistic u-turns, including on touchstone issues like healthcare, abortion, contraception and the car industry. Having previously governed a liberal state in Massachusetts, he's spent the past eight years denying his past in order to win the GOP nomination. There is a plethora of embarrassing footage for Obama to exploit. It is eerily reminiscent of John Kerry, fatally labelled an elitist, out of touch flip-flopper by the Bush machine in 2004.
