Dispatch #20

Unless the American economy collapses owing to some heretofore unknown instability in the capitalist system, Barack Obama will be re-elected president of the United States next month, reasonably comfortably, by four or five percentage points. While he has presided over an economy of long historic lows, the general sense is that we have bottomed out and will, however slowly, begin a more sustained economic recovery. Obama has indeed disappointed his supporters’ dreams of hope and change, but he has managed an accomplishment or two that prevented worse times. He has not been blamed for the depression, but he cannot take any credit for a successful exit. If, along with his re-election, the Democrats retain the Senate, as well as gain some ground in the House of Representatives—both real possibilities at the moment—Obama may be able to enact policies that can genuinely foster recovery. These political shifts are now the more important developments of this election.

Obama has been blessed with a deeply divided Republican Party and a candidate, Mitt Romney, who simply hasn’t the political gifts to placate, deceive, and exploit his lunatic right wing while he goes aggressively moderate and takes, and even shares, positions with Obama. Instead of lying to his right wing, Romney lies to himself, as well as misrepresenting himself to the American people. In the last two weeks, every time Mitt opens his mouth, he must later confess to speaking “inarticulately,” providing Democrats with further arguments to make him seem a great deal worse than he probably is or might be if he didn’t have to seem “conservative.” The general consensus is that his campaign is in big trouble; with a significant minority consensus in his own party. He may become the Republican version of Michael Dukakis, likewise a former governor of Massachusetts, who lost handily to the senior President Bush, H.W.

Three presidential debates are on tap for the month of October, but the electorate is already firming up. Fewer and fewer undecided voters remain, and some absentee balloting in important states begins next week. Romney basically has one chance in the first debate to stop the slide, then hope for a miracle. He’ll need both.