Ayoon Wa Azan (People Vote With Their Pockets In Mind)

President Barack Obama will win a second term, unless, between now and November 6, 2012, he is caught in flagrant delicto with a pretty twenty-something intern in a dark corner of the White House. But I don’t believe he will be caught. For this reason, I state today that he will win. Indeed, I ended my last article on the U.S. election campaigns on the sixth of this month by saying: Americans, and people in every country, mainly vote with their pockets in mind. There are clear indications that the U.S. economy has begun to recover from the severe crisis that Obama inherited from George W. Bush. When Obama took office in early 2009, the U.S. economy lost 598 thousand jobs in the first month of that year, and then 651 thousand jobs in the second month. We are in 2012, and the first month of this year saw the U.S. economy adding 242 thousand jobs, while 227 thousand jobs were added in the second month. The figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the average number of jobs added in each month in the last five months was 155 thousand jobs. Unemployment was close to ten percent in Bush’s last year in the White House, and is now 8.3 percent. Stocks have rallied, consumer confidence is on the increase, and so is manufacturing output. People vote with their pockets in mind. However, the image above is not complete without talking about Barack Obama’s rivals. For even if the President had himself chosen rivals that he can easily beat, he would not have found anyone better than Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. Romney hardly opens his mouth without making gaffes and blunders on many issues and numbers and figures. He is also a Mormon, and had almost lost in the state in which he was born (Michigan) to his rival Santorum, and when he gave his ‘victory’ speech, the large stadium where he spoke was nearly empty. Santorum, meanwhile, is to the right of an already right-wing party. Then he suddenly remembered he is a Catholic (in a country that is predominantly Protestant), and started taking positions against contraception and abortion. Then there is Gingrich, a walking and talking financial and ethical scandal. If the Republicans choose him as their presidential nominee, then even my son, who holds U.S. citizenship by virtue of his birth in Washington, can beat him. I did not forget Ron Paul, who is the best of the Republican contenders vying for the presidency. However, he has limited support, mainly among young people. The senior leaders of the Republican Party know the magnitude of the problem facing the GOP with the current Party contenders vying for the White House. I have thus started hearing talk of the need for salvation, or the need for a ‘Knight on a White Horse’ to be chosen at the Republican convention in Tampa Florida on 27/8/2012. Among the possible names of such knights were Florida Governor Jeb Bush, George’s brother, and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who is of Syrian origins. The Republican contenders realize the difficulty of their position with the economy improving. The subject of the economy, in fact, and with infinite insolence, had been their main ammunition against the President from the beginning, even when Obama had inherited the financial crisis from the Republicans. Now, the Republicans have started focusing on other issues, warning that Obama will go on a spending spree, doubling the national debt if he is reelected, that he will raise taxes, and that the price of gasoline will reach five dollars per gallon and possibly even more with him. In fact, the latest opinion poll shows that Obama’s popularity has fallen because of the price of gasoline in particular. Nonetheless, Obama remains more popular than any of the Republican contenders. Personally, I believe that Barack Obama will move away from Israel in his second term, especially from the fascist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and perhaps he will also begin delivering on the promises he had made to the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, before he backtracked under pressure from the Israel lobby, the Israel gang in Congress and Jewish money. We all saw how a third of Congressmen took part in the annual meeting of AIPAC, or the den of spies, for example. If we are to judge what Obama will do based on his speeches, including his last State of the Union address, then the references he made focus on reforming the immigration system, putting the healthcare plan into effect, reviving manufacturing, as well as taxing the wealthy and facilitating university enrollment for those desiring to do so. In addition, Obama has started a campaign to win over women who predominantly oppose the extreme conservatism shown by his Republican opponents. This all holds true unless, between now and November 6, 2012, he is caught in flagrant delicto with a young intern in a dark corner of the White House.