Dispatch #15

According to the Christian Science Monitor online, even as economic indicators have been weak and weakening, however slightly, President Obama’s poll numbers have been improving. This positive movement should not be happening. Why? Who knows.

My guesses are as follows: the uncharismatic and not particularly likeable Mr. Romney hasn’t come up with a campaign message or strategy other than Mitt Romney for President: Because. The candidate has gone overseas in a bid to seem presidential and immediately muffed his Olympian opportunity by criticizing—however accurately—the preparations for the London games, taking flak from the British press and pols for that undiplomatic breach of etiquette and judgment, then pronouncing that everything’s fine after meeting with the Tory prime minister. So much for his alleged understanding of the deep “Anglo-Saxon” connections between Great Britain and the United States. He’s off to Israel and Poland. To my Polish friends, best not to expect too much.

My second guess is that it is summer, with four months until the election, and that it has been sweltering here, in the high 20s°C, even in the 30s. Much of the country bakes in drought, and the Republicans have not figured out how to blame the President for the weather. And if they tried, it would suggest the more general problem of global warming, about which they are still in pretty complete political and intellectual denial. Long-range forecasts predict warm and dry conditions until October, leaving only a month until the election—which is all the longer a presidential campaign should be anyway.

Odds are still better than even that Barack Obama will be re-elected. If only Mr. Romney would find something intelligent to say that might appeal to independents, he might make a genuine contest of it. It will be close, it seems, but not because of anything Mr. Romney has done or said so far.