Has Barack Obama rediscovered his magic powers just in time to take him back to the White House? In this week’s magazine cover, Harold Evans writes that the 2012 election has been disastrous for the Democratic Party but incumbent president has may have woken up just in time.
On this week’s View from 22 podcast, two Spectator writers discuss whether Obama is on track to win the approaching election. Contributing Editor Douglas Murray thinks he will, albeit reluctantly:
‘Most people go on sense of some kind. My sense is that Obama will probably just scrape back in but my hope is that he doesn’t. Apart from anything else — I think that so many people in Britain and across Europe have think this in the bag — feel outraged that Americans would dare to vote for anyone than President Obama that I would love to see them the morning after.
‘I think the state by state breakdown still looks just to be edging in his [Obama’s] favour, but it is going to be very tight. I think the real reason Romney will fall short is that he has left this dash to centre a bit late and I don’t think the independents are going to go towards him in sufficient numbers.’
‘The first thing he needs to do is to reassure the Eurosceptics, who now make up the vast majority of his own party, that he is serious about addressing the European question at some point in the near future. The second thing is that he needs to deal with the UKIP threat. If the Tories come third in the European elections in 2014 behind UKIP, he will have — as someone in Downing Street put it to me last week — the mother of all party management issues on his hands.
‘I think that he hopes that saying ‘we will renegotiate and then we will put that to the British people, but after the next election’ will be enough to buy him some time. And what the Tories desperately need on the European issue is time.’
Fraser Nelson discusses our opposing articles by Mathew Parris and Tim Montgomerie on the best way for the Tories to win the next election. And what do our guests think about Andrew Mitchell and yesterday’s unemployment figures? Listen with the embedded player below to hear what we think about the beleaguered Chief Whip and the latest economic figures. You can also have the latest podcast delivered straight to your machine by subscribing through iTunes. As ever, we’d love to hear what you think, good or bad.
The View from 22 – 18 October 2012. Length 23:48
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