The Financial Times, which has been making significant in-roads into the U.S. market, knocks both Obama and Romney but sides with the incumbent:

Compared to 2008, when Barack Obama emerged triumphant against all the early odds, the 2012 campaign has offered little inspiration, still less instruction, on what Mr Obama or his Republican rival Mitt Romney would actually do in office. [...]

The more serious objection to Mr Romney is that he has gone through so many contortions to win his party’s nomination that it is hard to see how he would govern in practice. His wishlist includes an aspiration to raise Pentagon spending by a fifth while cutting everyone’s taxes and still somehow balancing the books. Such fiscal alchemy is an exercise in evasion, not a recipe for sustainable economic recovery. [...]

As in his response to hurricane Sandy, Mr Obama has shown that purposeful government can be part of the solution rather than the problem. Four years on from the financial crisis, with extreme inequality an affront to the American dream, there remains a need for intelligent, reformist governance. Mr Obama, his presidency defined by the economic crisis, looks the better choice.