2012 election

What a lot of things President Obama seems to have been holding back until after his re-election. Each day brings something new. There has been the news of an attack by Iran on a US drone in the Persian Gulf. Then there is the Petraeus affair – known about for months, but only leading to the CIA chief’s resignation immediately after Obama’s re-election. The Benghazi hearings are yet to come. And now another surprise. It transpires that the Iraqi government, a body which is only in power because of the sacrifice of thousands of American, British and other allied troops, is releasing from custody a senior Hezbollah terrorist who was

When I worked in Washington, I was shown round the White House by a junior Bush administration staffer. As our group made it round the building we passed various photos of George W. Bush signing bits of legislation into law, at nearly everyone our guide would stop and tell us how many voters in various key states would benefit from it. When there was a picture of Bush with a governor, we’d be regaled with both sets of approval ratings. It was clear that whatever the administration’s flaws – and there were many – it had an acute understanding of the importance of data and the changing nature of the

Today, says American political journalist Michael Brendan Dougherty, ‘120 million Americans will choose who they don’t want to be president.’ Exactly — for all Mitt Romney and Barack Obama’s upbeat noise over the last few days, the 2012 US presidential elections have been motivated, entirely, by fear and loathing. The key questions: Are you so fed up with Barack Obama that you can bring yourself to vote for Romney? Or do you hate the Republicans enough to vote for Obama? With all its attack ads and its mudslinging, this election has been negative populism from the start. It’s not liberalism vs conservatism; it’s anti-liberalism vs anti-conservatism. Let’s not be pious,