Can Charlotte Change Equation of a U.S. Campaign Bereft of Ideas? (La Stampa, Italy)

"America is in the limbo of an election campaign where political conflict conceals a scarcity of ideas and weak leadership. For Obama, this means failing to 'change Washington,' as he promised to do in 2008; while in Romneys case, it suggests a belief that he cannot win based on putting forward a new idea of America, but only on discontent over the shortcomings of his rival."

Translated by Kate Townsend

September 3, 2012

Italy - La Stampa - Original Article (Italian)

A labor parade before the opening of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. Will the event mark a change in a campiagn marked ny divisiveness and negative attacks? BBC NEWS VIDEO: U.S. Democrats prepare for pre-election convention, Sept. 4, 00:02:07

The Democratic Convention in Charlotte opens tomorrow under the banner of publicly-defaming Mitt Romney, now that the Republican Convention in Tampa , which ended Thursday, portrayed Barack Obama as a president guilty of so many errors that he deserves to be fired. On both fronts, the electoral strategy is based on exaggerating the adversary's defects.

In the 12 swing states, team Obama has already spent over $100 million on TV ads depicting Romney as a tax evader and unscrupulous speculator - the face of crony capitalism. Similarly, Team Romney underwrote a convention at which accusations that Obama caused 23 million Americans to be out of work played like a broken record, propelling dozens of speakers to deliver ghostwritten harangues, and leaving the memory of September 11th to Condoleezza Rice alone.

Posted by Worldmeets.US

Behind this convergence of approaches is that the two teams read the challenge similarly: Democrat David Plouffe and Republican Stuart Stevens believe that the race will remain tied into the final weeks, and that therefore, whoever manages to mobilize more voters from the "base" will prevail. Polls confirm this interpretation: the candidates: the candidates have been almost tied since February, and the pro-Romney effect of the Tampa Convention doesn't seem to have altered the situation much, even taking account of the fact that the number of undecided voters has dropped to 5 percent.

For Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, a movement that inspired Ronald Reagan, this means that Romney is the favorite, because undecided voters always tend to go for the challenger in the end. Alternatively, presidential historian Larry Sabato brings up the possibility of a repetition of Florida 2000, when the White House was decided based on a difference of 537 votes, and Bill Schneider, conservative political scientist on liberal CNN, talks of a stalemate, due to the fact that America is polarized over Obama and no one seems willing to change their mind. The impasse damages the discussion on programs and proposals because strategists, pollsters, and TV ads are instead concentrated on the attacks.

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Obama promises to change the tone starting Thursday night, when in his nomination acceptance speech he will announce his intention to set the course of the next four years with concrete proposals for measures and reforms capable of boosting economic growth. Meanwhile, Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan, touring the swing states, will argue that they will soon reveal details of their plan to "create 12 million jobs" which they spoke of on stage in Tampa.

While awaiting the respective moves of the candidates, America is in the limbo of an election campaign where political conflict conceals a scarcity of ideas and weak leadership. For Obama, this means failing to change Washington, as he promised to do in 2008; while in Romneys case, it suggests a belief that he cannot win based on putting forward a new idea of America, but only on discontent over the shortcomings of his rival. We will soon know whether the conclave in Charlotte will be able to change the equation.



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