2012 Endorsement: Re-Elect President Obama

The Presidential nominating contests are now over.  In the past few days President Barack Obama has officially kicked off his re-election campaign with rallies in the battleground states of Virginia and Ohio, and challenger Mitt Romney has seen his last serious opponent withdraw from the Republican race.  With both nominations now assured at the respective major party conventions, it is time to go ahead and make my endorsement.  The choice for 2012 is clear: President Obama deserves a second term and should be re-elected President of the United States. 

The president who takes the oath of office on January 20, 2013 will confront a host of problems.  Domestic policy, including the economy, will be at the forefront of these.  Yet the nation also faces serious challenges in foreign policy.  Beyond this, the next administration will also be called upon to navigate a number of serious and inherently divisive social issues as well.   On all three counts, President Obama is the best choice for the American people.

Obama has the right prescription for what ails the American economy.  He entered office during the worst recession in 80 years, a downturn caused by the reckless irresponsibilities of a financial industry that in creating a housing bubble and risky investment instruments, brought the global financial structure to the edge of collapse.  This had been abetted in government by a diffident philosophy that gave irresponsible fast buck operators free rein to operate without serious regulatory accountability.  President Obama acted on that with Wall Street Regulatory Reform and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  He also stopped the free-falling economy with a $787 billion stimulus package that stopped the job losses and has produced job gains every month for over two years now.  See these graphs. 

In contrast, Romney wants to return to the lax regulatory stance of the Bush years and supports the Paul Ryan budget plan of tax cuts for the wealthy and budget cuts to the infrastructure and human needs of the rest of society.  Analysis shows that the Romney budget would actually increase the deficit by cutting revenues so sharply.  Beyond that, its cuts in domestic spending would follow the "austerity" path the European nations adopted and that now is leading them into a double-dip recession.  Spending cuts are working no better for them in a recession than they did for Herbert Hoover, and for the same reason.  Yet Romney hews to the discredited party line.

Obama has also excelled in foreign policy, ending the Iraq War and now in the process of successfully winding down the Afghan War.  His drone strikes despite Pakistani protests have eliminated two-thirds of al-Qaeda's leadership and his decisive action in ordering the Bin Laden raid rid the world of its greatest terrorist menace.  He demonstrated admirable deftness in dealing with the Arab Spring, including the insurgency against Libya's Qaddafi.  He is handling the Korean and Iranian situations with the perfect balance of diplomatic incentives and sanctions.  As a result, under Obama's leadership the U.S. is once again respected and even liked in the world. 

In Romney's case, on world affairs he appears disengaged and uninformed.  He relies on many of the same interventionist neocon advisers left over from the ruinous Bush-Cheney administration.  He is still living in the Cold War, saying that "Russia is public enemy number one" in one memorable statement.  As if we haven't had enough problems with open-ended wars, he joined the rest of the Republican candidates in advocating starting a new war against Iran.  He is clearly out of his depth in foreign affairs, a shortcoming that could be highly damaging were he to become the leader of the free world.  

Obama is similarly the better of the two on social issues by far.  In supporting the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell in the military, supporting the Violence Against Women Act, leaving women's questions such as abortion and contraception up to them, supporting the DREAM Act and standing strong for college Pell Grants and low student loan interest rates, the President continues to serve the causes of fairness and equality in society.  Romney, on the other hand, has stood with the extreme right-wingers in his party on all these issues except for his belated support for the student loan interest rate matter.  He campaigned on being the most opposed to comprehensive immigration reform, is against gay rights and has supported all the recent restrictions Republican-controlled state legislatures have enacted against permitting women to make their own choices.  It is no coincidence Romney trails the President 70-14 with Latinos and 55-39 among women.