Archive
Reuters blog archive
from The Great Debate:
Why it’s all about Ohio
Looking at Tuesday’s election results, it’s clear the United States has morphed into five distinct political nations. This marks a sharp consolidation of the nine cultural and economic regions that sociologist Joel Garreau laid out 30 years ago in his landmark book “The Nine Nations of North America.”
In political terms there are two solid blue nations, perched on opposite coasts, that have formed a large and powerful bloc. Opposing them are two almost equally red countries, which include the historic Confederacy as well as the vast open reaches between the Texas panhandle and the Canadian border.
Between these two largely immovable blocs stands the fifth nation -- essentially the Great Lakes industrial heartland. By winning this territory -- which could be called “Bailout Nation” -- President Barack Obama built a winning coalition. Though this part of the country has suffered economic decline and demographic stagnation for decades, it is now emerging, as former President George W. Bush would put it, as “the decider” of America’s political fate.
It’s no surprise that the coastal nations voted totally blue, reelecting the president, usually by margins of 10 points or more. The first of these nations can be dubbed “the Old Country,” the most European part of America.
from Breakingviews:
The biggest winner in U.S. election: Mr. Uncertainty
By Daniel Indiviglio
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
Mr. Market might as well concede now to Mr. Uncertainty. Although American polls won’t close until Tuesday evening, neither President Barack Obama nor his challenger Mitt Romney is likely to emerge with a robust mandate. It doesn’t take a worst-case, state-by-state recount scenario to foresee market gridlock.
from Ian Bremmer:
Rocking the vote may not rock the boat
This week -- chads willing -- Americans will finally put an end to four years’ worth of electoral Sturm und Drang. Only then can the country begin to ask the question that matters much more than who will win: Will anything change? On foreign policy, it’s increasingly clear that the answer is, for the most part, no.
Likewise, this week -- politburo willing -- the Chinese will finally put an end to a year of bureaucratic angst. The powers that be hope that once a new president is installed, the Communist Party can put months of scandal behind it (Bo Xilai’s trial and Wen Jiabao’s family fortune, to name just a couple) and start to answer the question they’re most eager to put to bed: Will anything change in a new regime? On foreign policy, it’s increasingly clear that the answer is -- you guessed it -- for the most part, no.
from Full Focus:
Election day
After a long campaign, voters hit the polls to select the next U.S. president.
from Breakingviews:
Chris Christie may soon feel Barack Obama’s pain
By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
Chris Christie’s budding bromance with Barack Obama may grow even stronger. New Jersey’s Republican governor, who praised the president as they surveyed superstorm devastation together last week, faces a Sandy-related revenue hit that will make it hard to balance the budget, as mandated by the state constitution. That could leave Christie stealing a page from Obama’s election playbook.
from The Great Debate:
Delegitimization of Obama begins
The Republican drive to delegitimize President Barack Obama’s possible second term has started.
As recent polls have allowed for the possibility that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney could win the popular vote while the president carries the Electoral College, the conservative blogosphere has lit up not only with long-overdue attacks on the Electoral College but also with the specious argument that a popular-vote loss for Obama will undermine his mandate and justify continued obstruction by Republican lawmakers.
from The Great Debate:
The consequences of Obama’s debt
This essay was submitted through the Romney campaign as a response to Lawrence Summers' most recent column, "This election, Obama is the wiser economic choice."
The large budget deficits and expansion of the national debt under President Barack Obama, unprecedented since World War II, have him set to bequeath an immensely costly legacy. Each of his deficits as a percentage of gross domestic product has been larger than the previous post-World War II record, for which Democrats excoriated President Ronald Reagan. Between the debt already racked up and what Obama’s FY13 budget projects, each income-tax-paying family will owe more in Obama debt than a new mortgage on a median-priced home and four years of college costs.
from Tales from the Trail:
Could Sandy blow away the election? Don’t hold your breath
Deadly Superstorm Sandy left millions of Americans snowed in, flooded out or stranded without power – and the federal government itself in Washington closed - just a week before voters across the country head to the polls. But if anyone is wondering whether Election Day will be put off, the answer is almost certainly no.
Local U.S. elections have been postponed before – in one relatively recent example, New York put off voting that had been set for Sept. 11, 2001, because of the attacks on the country that day. But presidential balloting has always gone on, even during the Civil War in 1864 (President Abraham Lincoln was re-elected).
from Breakingviews:
To fix U.S. finances requires compromiser-in-chief
By Rob Cox and Daniel Indiviglio
The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.
Who is best suited to be the next compromiser-in-chief? That may be the most important question American voters will have to answer when they head to the polls to elect a new president on Nov. 6. A sweeping, bipartisan agreement to reform the tax code, cut spending and ensure the safety of entitlement programs is an essential precondition for stabilizing the country’s finances and getting the economy back on track.
from Global Investing:
Pricing ‘new brooms’ at White House and Fed
With less than two weeks left to the U.S. presidential elections and all three televised debates done and dusted, investors are at last squaring up to the detailed financial market impact of the event itself and the column inches in newsprint and research reports lengthen by the day.
Barclays interest rate strategists are one of the first to stick hard numbers on likely market outcomes in a report late Tuesday that dug deep into both the well-documented "fiscal cliff" but also into the less discussed uncertainty surrounding the medium-term direction of the Federal Reserve and its leadership.
