US President Barack Obama has carved out a clear advantage in the White House race even as he juggles the demands of his re-election campaign with managing a raging Middle East crisis.
Obama appears to be enjoying a resilient bounce following the Democratic National Convention nearly two weeks ago, while his Republican challenger Mitt Romney has struggled to land telling blows.
The US leader has a small, but definite, advantage in most national polls of the race to the Nov. 6 election, and, more importantly, looks strong in swing states that will decide whether he wins a second term.
However, while he has benefited from the advantages of incumbency — including an ability to appear statesmanlike, Obama could also experience its downside if anti-US feeling racing through the Muslim world takes another deadly turn.
So far, Obama appears to have avoided missteps following the deaths of four Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, that would erode his national security edge over Romney.
The president was up 10 points over his rival when voters were asked before the crisis who they trust more to steer foreign policy, in a CBS/New York Times poll.
Obama’s campaign team would welcome an election fought over the more friendly terrain of national security, rather than the tepid economy, for which he is responsible.
However, with Americans, including diplomats and Marines sent to protect them, vulnerable in the Arab world, Obama cannot yet afford to breathe easy.
“If this mushrooms and goes on, and we’re seeing people attacking US interests, then yes, it would raise foreign policy on the agenda of the election,” said Michele Dunne, director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.
However, Dunne added that even if unrest in North Africa and elsewhere went on, it was unlikely to trump the economy as the dominant issue of the election.
In recent days, Obama has repeatedly been called upon to handle the threats to US targets in Yemen, Sudan, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, with one eye on his political prospects.
On Friday, he officiated in the return of the US dead from Libya, then nipped out of the White House for meetings with his campaign team and a big money fundraiser in Washington.
Obama fitted in trips to swing states Nevada and Colorado, with visits to Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin and Virginia on deck. Eight weeks before the election and three weeks before the first of three presidential debates with Romney, Obama appears well placed.
In Gallup’s daily tracking poll on Saturday, Obama was up 49 percent to 45 percent on Romney and in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls, he was up 3 percent on the Republican.
In Wall Street Journal/NBC/Marist College polls, Obama led Romney 49 percent to 44 percent in Florida, by 50 percent to 43 percent in Ohio and in Virginia by 49 to 44 percent.
Should Obama duplicate that performance in November, he would easily capture the required 270 electoral votes.
However, Romney has struggled to assert himself since he owned the spotlight at his Florida convention last month.
His hair trigger criticism of Obama as sympathizing with protesters who invaded the US embassy in Cairo prompted Obama to label him a “shoot first, aim later” candidate, and undermined foreign policy credentials tarnished by an error-strewn trip abroad.
Critics have questioned Romney’s decision on Friday to appear on a soft focus daytime chat show, addressing trivial issues like what he wears to bed each night instead of focusing on the Middle East.
“I’m kind of a Snooki fan,” Romney said, referring to Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, star of MTV reality show Jersey Shore.
Romney’s segment, set to air tomorrow, was part of his effort to show a more personable side to female voters, who polls show strongly favor Obama.
Romney’s tone jarred with the somber mood of a day on which the bodies the four dead Americans returned home in a heart-rending ceremony.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS