Discussing the 2012 Primary Season on Sky News and Al Jazeera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGC17Q1Ekpg

From the beginning of the 2012 election process, Mitt Romney has had a great deal of momentum but has failed to generate much in the way of enthusiasm among the Republican electorate. He is singularly unable to win the hearts and minds of the GOP base, enabling Rick Santorum to cling to a remote hope that, just perhaps, he could emerge as the eventual candidate.

Due to Romney’s inability to nail down his advantage, the remaining candidates are refusing to drop out. Rand Paul and Newt Gingrich are only polling at 10% and their support would most likely swing behind Santorum, but his own inability to close the deal with the electorate is increasing pressure on him to withdraw from the race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BR61fGa_d4

The election season turns to Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and a series of states in New England and along the eastern seaboard. Santorum should be expecting to carry his home state of Pennsylvania, but Romney appears to be ahead with only days to go. Santorum will be working to claw back his advantage as a favorite son in the state, but a failure to do so would be humiliating and effectively end his campaign.

The Republicans face a real problem as Barack Obama's figures are picking up heading into the summer months. The nation’s unemployment figures are improving, along with the rest of the economic numbers, undermining any Republican efforts to challenge him on pocketbook issues. Barack Obama's timing looks impeccable, further exacerbating the expectation that he is set for re-election.

Discussing 2012's Iowa Caucus on Sky News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iodW2ZXsnPs

The first ballots are about to be cast in the Iowa caucuses and the race remains wide open.  Mitt Romney is leading in national polls and has been throughout the early stages of the 2012 election cycle. It is important, however, to discount national polling and look at state polling, because Iowa is very much a law unto itself. This also is a statewide caucus. There is not one caucus, but rather a whole series of these events which take place in various locations, including schools, town halls, and even in people's houses. This is not a primary, and some votes will take place by a show of hands, so it is an unusual process.

While Iowa is not representative of the rest of America, the Iowa Caucuses are important because Iowa prides itself on being the first state in the nation to go to the polls. This allows potentially obscure candidates to do well and emerge on the national stage.  Jimmy Carter in 1976 and George Bush in 1980 both gained national prominence because of their success in Iowa, providing what Bush termed ‘The Big Mo (momentum)’ before heading into the New Hampshire Primary.

Mitt Romney’s slim lead in national polls is indicative of his reputation for being a safe pair of hands, but he also has a series of negative aspects that will potentially hamper his campaign. He is a Mormon, something that has repeatedly been raised as a challenge for him.  He is also from New Hampshire, which is not a natural territory for a staunch Republican, causing many to wonder if he is too liberal for the national party. However, Iowa is very much about local, regional issues, so you have leading contenders going into people's homes and talking about ethanol and farming issues. This is retail politics, and people won't vote for a candidate unless they have met them at least three times.

Michelle Bachman has been comparing herself to Margaret Thatcher in recent days, but this does not appear to be resonating with voters. She has become the forgotten candidate in Iowa, where she was expected to do very well.  Instead, she has plummeted in the polls over the past several weeks. Her attempt to draw parallels with the former British prime minister, in large part due to the recent release of the movie, The Iron Lady, appears to be a final, last-gasp roll of the dice, and comes at a time when people are flocking from her campaign team.

Polling indicates that there are a lot of Republican voters who are uninspired by the candidates, ensuring that the Democratic Party is rubbing its hands together.  Barack Obama's greatest gift right now is his opponents, who are arguably a rather disparate group. The fact that Mitt Romney is leading in the polls is indicative of how under-represented the right wing is in American politics, and within the Republican Party. In the coming days 120,000 Iowans will make a big impact upon who the next president United States could be.

Covering Obama's UK Visit on Sky News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqqUlneMro

I was on Sky News this morning, discussing President Obama's trip to Europe. The conversation concentrated on his initial stop-over in Eire, where he reveled in his Irish ancestry. I must admit that one doesn't really look at Obama and immediately think of the Emerald Isle, but I guess that he is just the latest in a long line of president's claiming Irish ancestry to bolster their domestic standing with the Irish community in the United States.

After all of the shenanigans regarding birth certificates, Barack Hussein Patrick O’Bama is really an Irishman. Apparently, one of over 20 presidents who make claim to Irish ancestry. Few have as strong claim to such roots as John F. Kennedy, who famously returned to the Emerald Isle in the last summer of his all too brief life, but America’s newest Irish-American made a brave (and nicely light hearted) pitch in front of a crowd of thousands in central Dublin last night.

The president’s speech was a remarkable tour de force, coming on the heels of an equally spirited address by Taoiseach Kenny. In an emotive and wide ranging address, O’Bama weaved personal and national narrative together in a highly effective manner that really made one realise why he is the President of the United States. At times it has been easy to forget the power that his rhetoric carried in the 2008 campaign, but it was certainly on show in Dublin last night.

I seem to remember when Obama used to be from Kenya and Hawaii? Apparently that was soooo yesterday! I know he campaigned on a platform of 'Change' but I didn't think that changing his ancestry was what he had in mind.

In London from Tuesday, Obama will hold meetings at Downing Street with the PM David Cameron to discuss Afghanistan and UK/US foreign policy. Doubtless to say questions of the Special Relationship will come up, along with issues pertaining to the demise of Osama bin Laden.

The president’s schedule in England is formality personified: staying at Buckingham Palace, meetings with the Prime Minister and addressing both Houses of Parliament. It is a shame that no such public occasion appears to have been factored into the president’s schedule. Could it be anything to do with the absence of a discernible English-American voting block in the States?