Light under a bushel

Barack Obama has inexplicably underplayed his hand

As voters in the US go to the polls, they will know that the contest between the Democrat incumbent and his Republican challenger is expected to be close. According to the Pew Research Centre’s election weekend survey, Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney by just three percentage points when the probable decisions of undecided voters are accounted for. Mr Obama has received a slight last-minute surge thanks to his competent handling of the impact of Hurricane Sandy. Not only did 46 per cent of Mr Romney’s supporters indicate their approval – including, famously, New Jersey’s colourful Republican governor Chris Christie – 63 per cent of swing voters did, too. All eyes, therefore, are on the nine battleground states in which both candidates are frantically campaigning.

Mr Obama will no doubt reflect that this is an odd position to be in. His opponent has been weaker on almost every substantive issue that concerns ordinary recession-hit Americans. Mr Romney has been buffeted between the inconsistency of his political and economic agenda and unappealing aspects of his personal history. He has struggled to combine his party’s raucous and powerful Tea Party faction’s anti-big government agenda with his own moderate record in liberal Massachusetts. It means, for example, that he could not take credit for introducing a path-breaking healthcare programme as governor that served as a model for Mr Obama’s federal reform. His apparent insensitivity to the travails of those less fortunate has also hurt him — bolstered by his famous “47 per cent” remark and his strong support for continued tax cuts for the wealthy. His party would prefer to talk about his record as a businessman – he helped set up Bain Capital – but, in times of recession, shareholder value created by restructuring undervalued companies is not uppermost in people’s minds. The human cost is.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama can legitimately claim to have delivered on the two big-ticket issues that have worried Americans the most: jobs and terrorism. Unemployment is still high in absolute terms, but is inching back to pre-recession levels; and the killing of Osama bin Laden should insulate him from the standard Republican charge that Democrats are weak on foreign policy. While he may have failed to live up to 2008’s promise of “hope and change” and has struggled to get legislation passed, he deserves credit for running a workmanlike administration in times of crisis. Yet his campaign has failed to make this point well enough. Mr Obama is known as an eloquent orator. Yet, the most memorable speech of his campaign came instead from former president Bill Clinton at the Democrat convention in September, who explained Mr Obama’s achievements much better than the incumbent did.

By all accounts, it will be another tense election night, but not for India. Republicans – tough on China, misty-eyed about democracy, and bullish on trade – have traditionally been better for India than Democrats. However, the two countries’ fast-developing strategic partnership survived four years of Mr Obama’s benign neglect, and is now largely independent of domestic politics in either country.