Blog

22 january 2012, game on

I don't have any particular expertise in calling the us presidential campaign, but I've as much right as anyone to enjoy the greatest political spectacle on earth. Had obama's first term been as transformational as it had the potential to be, or were the world's largest economy gently humming along, the president would be unbeatable. However, as things stand, a strong centre-ground republican candidate ought to be a shoo in. How strange then that the party of lincoln, eisenhower and theordore roosevelt should have chosen this time around to indulge itself in a bout of radical ideological puritanism and bloodletting, as if it had no chance. What has become clear in the last month though, with the emergence of romney as firm favourite from a thick and contradictory pack, is that despite all the hype, when the party actually votes, it chooses someone it thinks can win. Once that became clear, the large anti-romney vote finally realised it had to coalesce too around the only candidate left who could remotely pass as a centrist, setting up the sensational victory in south carolina for newt gingrich. And since 1980 every candidate that has won south carolina has won the nomination. Not the presidency though, which despite the timidity, despite the disappointment, despite the economy being set for rougher times ahead, must surely now be odds on obama's for a second chance to prove the doubters wrong.