If anyone feels like making predictions in mid-October on the outcome of the American presidential vote on November 6, 2012, please come forward. Reasonable prudence suggests postponing any predictions around October 28-29, because only then will we know if Mitt Romney's comeback held up and if his odds of victory are truly formidable, both in the national popular vote and in that of six key states capable of giving him the majority of the required electoral votes. As known, it is the States that elect the President, each with a number of votes proportional to the population, from 55 (California) and 3 (Montana and various low-population ones), and almost everywhere the votes of the State, or electoral votes, go in toto to whoever won the majority of the popular vote.
Some of these states are always crucial and fought over, such as Ohio and Florida, others are in this particular consultation. In order of importance today count Ohio and Wisconsin, equal weight, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, and even Colorado. If Romney gets the electoral votes of the top four he gets very close to the fateful 270 electoral votes that determine the winner.
Ohio is a symbol, because since 1856 a Republican candidate always has this state on his side if he wins the White House. But tear the Wisconsin, safe for the Democrats for 20 and more years, would be a sign of strength that would be difficult for Obama to contain. So, on the evening of November 6 (night Italian time) pay attention to the results of Wisconsin first of all: if Obama is not in the lead, it would be a bad sign for him. If, on the other hand, he holds, and Romney does not make it in Ohio, a second Obama term is imminent. If the current president also takes the Florida, the encore is pretty much sure. If Obama loses Ohio and Florida, probably go home. And if he loses Wisconsin, he goes home safe or nearly safe, because that would be a sign that the levee has broken.
This is the electoral arithmetic, always very important, because if in 2004 John Kerry had won 118 more votes in Ohio, just 2% of the votes of that state, he would have been the winner and not a Bush son who also had the nearly 3 million more popular votes.
In essence Obama is held back by the economy, which is not good. Majority households have become impoverished and continue to lose purchasing power, because good-paying jobs are increasingly rare and new jobs generally pay a third less. Obama is weighed down by a campaign which, after the hope and change of four years ago, can only now essentially appeal to the fear that a republican presidency inspires part of the popular classes and the middle class. It is not only wealth that divides voters, because one of the reservoirs of Republican votes is in what in Italy would still be called, perhaps, the working class and in America it goes under the label of blue collar workers. He also shares an idea of America. And for many, Republican America is too individualistic and harsh.
Then a Obama will win if the fears a Romney presidency raises are widespread enough. And Romney will win if dissatisfaction with the current president's policies and choices reaches the point of no return on November 6. The voters who will leave the house still uncertain and will decide when to enter the polling station risk being decisive this time.
For the economy and finance, the basic fact of this electoral campaign remains the drama of public debt, which has now reached 103% of GDP in official data, which however do not take into account the debt of states and local authorities nor do they count the commitments made by Washington four years ago to guarantee the approximately 6 trillion of the public real estate finance system (Fannie and Freddie). With Bush junior, the debt grew by 5 thousand billion in eight years and it seemed like a drama. With Obama, due to the crisis, of 5 trillion in four years. The spiral is broken.
Obama says he will do it with cuts yes, but also with new taxes. Romney says he will use cuts far more than taxes, enemies of American enterprise. Actually Obama will make more cuts than he says and Romney will introduce more new taxes than he admits today, but both will not be able to avoid a horse cure. It is also for this reason that the vote runs the risk of appearing, right up to the end, uncertain. At the moment Obama remains the favourite, but not too much. And Romney proved he's not out of the game at all. Far from it.
