Us politics

Wednesday

Freddy Gray

The rise of the Ron Paul Movement

Everybody knew that Mitt Romney would win in New Hampshire. But the real success story of last night is Ron Paul, who came second, with 23.5 per cent of the vote. In 2008, he came fifth, with just eight per cent of the vote. Santorum, Gingrich and other ‘anti-Mitt’ candidates have risen and fallen, but Paul, who has refused to attack Romney directly in recent days, grows stronger and stronger. The Paul campaign, as Grace Wyler reports, has been playing a long game. They have been focusing their efforts on states, such as Iowa, in which they can win substantial numbers of delegates ahead of the Republican National Convention in

Jonathan Jones

Romney wins comfortably this time

Last night Mitt Romney became the first Republican, excluding sitting Presidents, to win both the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary. And unlike in Iowa last week, his supporters didn’t have to wait until the next day to start celebrating. The exit polls were enough for Romney to be declared the winner within an hour of the voting booths closing. And now, with 95 per cent of the votes counted, he’s secured about 39 per cent of the vote – slightly higher than the share McCain received in 2008, and 16 points ahead of Ron Paul this time. Romney looks more the inevitable nominee than ever, and his victory

Tuesday

Jonathan Jones

What to expect in New Hampshire

Tonight’s New Hampshire primary is very unlikely to provide the sort of razor-thin margin we saw in Iowa last week. Mitt Romney looks assured of a comfortable win – Nate Silver’s poll-based model (above) gives him a 98 per cent chance of victory. If one of the others did somehow beat him, it’d be the biggest upset of any modern US primary. The only real questions are just how comfortable it’ll be (20 points? 30? or just 10?), and who will come second. The polls suggest the battle for runner-up will be between Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman. Paul is the favourite to take it, but the momentum of the

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Romney hit from all sides on investment career

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_evS-T-c35M I noted on Saturday that one of the main attacks the Democrats are employing against Mitt Romney revolves around his 14 years as head of Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm which he co-founded. The argument is that Romney made a fortune as head of a company that was responsible for the closure of businesses and the laying off of thousands of American workers. Romney’s rebuttal is that this is how free enterprise works — in a debate on Saturday, he said: ‘in the free economy, in the private sector, sometimes investments don’t work and you’re not successful… in the business I had, we invested in over 100

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama enjoys the high life

Amidst all the talk of Tony Blair’s post-office earnings, it is interesting to read in The Times of Barack Obama’s post-presidency ambitions. In Jodi Kantor’s new book on the Obamas, the president is quoted telling old friends of the couple that: ‘When I leave office there are only two things I want. I want a plane and I want a valet.’ Now, I am sure Obama made the remark half in jest. But it does show how quickly politicians become accustomed to the conveniences of office. Though in Blair’s case, his money-making seems to be motivated more by a desire to match the lifestyle of the global elite that he

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Democrats ready to face Romney

As James said yesterday, Mitt Romney is well on the way to becoming the Republican nominee. He is virtually certain to win New Hampshire on Tuesday – Nate Silver’s projections give him a 99 per cent chance of victory – and he’s odds on in South Carolina and Florida too, which would give him a clean sweep of the January primaries. It’s not the outcome Team Obama were hoping for – they’d have had a much easier ride against just about any of the other candidates (save perhaps Jon Huntsman) – but it is the one they were expecting. As a result, they’re ready for him, and Romney’s already been the focus

Friday

James Forsyth

Romney on course for the nomination

Mitt Romney’s status as the overwhelming favourite to be the Republican nominee for president is confirmed by a new poll out of South Carolina. It has Romney on 37 per cent, 18 points ahead of his nearest rival Rick Santorum. South Carolina is the next primary contest after New Hampshire, which takes place on Tuesday and which Romney is expected to win comfortably.   The significance of these new numbers is that South Carolina, the first primary in the south, has long been considered inhospitable territory for Romney. (In the 2008 primary there, he finished a disappointing fourth with 15 percent of the vote). If Romney is to be denied

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

Iowa’s losers

Back in September, Rick Perry was the betting favourite to win both the Iowa caucus and the Republican nomination. Instead, he scored just 10 per cent of the vote last night, leaving him down in fifth place. This disappointing result may well be the final nail in the coffin of Perry’s campaign, and last night he certainly sounded like a candidate at the end of the line: ‘With the voters’ decision tonight in Iowa, I’ve decided to return to Texas, assess the results of tonight’s caucus, determine whether there is a path forward for myself in this race… With a little prayer and a little reflection, I’m going to decide

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Romney’s faltering first step towards the nomination

Mitt Romney’s victory by eight votes in Iowa is hardly a ringing endorsement of his candidacy. But, I suspect, he will be the nominee. The real danger for Romney was a repeat of his 2008 failure in Iowa. He has avoided that. He now heads for New Hampshire where he has a massive poll lead. A commanding victory there will give him the big mo to get through South Carolina, an inhospitable state for him, and head into Florida, a banker for him, in a strong position. Rick Santorum, who broke from the back of pack at just the right moment and came so close to upsetting Romney, will now

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Romney by eight votes

Instead of white smoke, Iowa is belching thick fog. Mitt Romney has won by, erm, eight votes. At least so we think, the Republicans say that it has to wait until ‘Certified Form E’ will be returned by all the Iowa counties, which will take two weeks, so this gossamer majority may well vanish. Already some votes have been lost, others miscounted, so I doubt Romney will be doing much of a victory dance today. Iowa’s indecision is final. He has won by a majority of 0.0065 percentage points. It’s pretty good for the man who almost beat him, Rick Santorum, who won 30,007 votes to Romney’s 30,015. And Santorum

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Iowa’s dead heat

If you’ve just woken up, hoping to find out who won the Iowa caucus, then tough luck: they have lost the votes from two of the main counties, and Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are neck-in-neck on 25 per cent of the votes. Ron Paul has 21 per cent. As of 6am, there are reports that precincts have miscounted votes in a way that penalised Romney – but you don’t do recounts in a caucus. Some 122,106 votes have been counted and Romney and Santorum are just four votes apart. Even if Romney wins when the lost votes have been discovered, the closeness and farce of the lost/miscounted votes will

Tuesday

Daniel Korski

Goading in the Gulf

The year has begun with Iran and the United States circling each other in the Straits of Hormuz; like two boxers before a bout, seeing who will strike first and working out where a blow could land. The immediate cause has been Iranian manoeuvres in the Arabian Gulf, and a visit to the area by the American aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis. Iran’s army chief has said that his country will take action if a US aircraft carrier returns to the Gulf. Oil prices have shot up as a result. This could be the worst time to goad a Democratic president facing pressure from those Republicans currently trying ‘out

Jonathan Jones

What to expect in Iowa

Tonight, caucus-goers in Iowa will deliver their verdict on this year’s Republican candidates for President. Above are Nate Silver’s latest poll-based projections of the result, showing three candidates with a decent chance of victory: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Santorum, who has surged in Iowa over the past week following endorsements from influential social conservatives Bob Vander Plaats and Chuck Hurley, could win tonight despite not having led a single poll. Which candidate prevails will depend largely on turnout. Like Obama four years ago, Paul’s hopes lie with those who would not usually vote in the Republican caucuses: Independents, Democrats and young people. But, also like Obama four

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Tonight in Iowa

One of the things that makes the Iowa caucuses so different from most elections is that it is almost the opposite of a secret ballot. Four years ago I went to report on a caucus in suburban Des Moines. As soon as voters entered the school sports hall in which it was taking place, they had to go and stand in the corner of their candidate. There then followed a quite remarkable period where people tried to get their friends and neighbours to come over to their corner. Everyone was clocking who everyone else was voting for. This gives the caucuses a very different dynamic than other elections. Tonight in

Friday

Daniel Korski

Will Israel bomb a near-nuclear Iran in 2012?

An Israeli strike on Iran has to be the most over-predicted event of recent years. It was meant to happen last year. And the year before that. But now there are reasons why 2012 could, indeed, be the year when Israel will find it propitious to take overt military action against Iran’s nuclear programme. (Everyone assumes that a range of covert activities, from assassinations to cyber attacks, are already ongoing). The Iranian government is moving closer to having the requisite capabilities, and can reasonably be expected to take the final steps towards nuclearisation. What better way for Tehran to distract attention from their burgeoning problems — including sanctions, economic hardship,

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Saint Obama? Not quite…

Will 2012 be a good year for Barack Obama? His job approval ratings reached a six-month high this week on the back of news that had he had secured a payroll tax cut for American workers. He’s also benefitting from the conclusion of the Iraq war and the fact that, with next week’s Iowa caucuses fast approaching, his Republican opponents look hopeless. Obama’s populist re-election message, in which he says, in effect, that he is the good guy and it is only the filthy Republicans and the corrupt Washington system holding him back, seems to be working. But should it? In this week’s Spectator, I ask whether the Obama administration

Monday

Daniel Korski

Stopping Maliki’s coup

The year is ending not with a successful US withdrawal from Iraq — as President Barack Obama claims — but with what amounts to a coup d’etat by the country’s Shiite prime minister (and former ally of the US) Nouri al-Maliki. Less than 24 hours after the last US soldier left Iraq, the country’s Sunni vice-president Tareq al-Hashemi was wanted on charges that he led death squads, in a case most observers think could reignite the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07. Violence in Iraq has subsided since 2006-07, when Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen killed thousands of civilians each month — but, without U.S. troops to act as a buffer, many

Tuesday

James Forsyth

Why ‘starving the beast’ may not work

Steven F. Hayward’s audit of the state of American conservatism, which David Brooks judges to be one of the best magazine articles of the year, argues that the Reaganite ‘starve the beast strategy’ has failed to halt the growth of government. Hayward writes: ‘Thirty years after the arrival of the Reagan Revolution, government is bigger than ever. The Reagan years appear to have been little more than a mild speed bump in the progress of ever-larger government. The regulatory state advances relentlessly on every front. The soaring national debt threatens economic oblivion sooner or later. In short, the Reagan era, for all that was accomplished, was not an analogue to

Jonathan Jones

Ron Paul now favourite to win in Iowa

Hardly anyone would’ve predicted it just a few weeks ago, but libertarian congressman Ron Paul now looks most likely to win the Iowa caucuses, with just a fortnight to go. Two new polls show Paul leading Mitt Romney, as Newt Gingrich collapses to third – or even fourth – place. According to Nate Silver’s projections (based on the polls and historical results), Paul now has a 52 per cent chance of winning, compared to Romney’s 28 per cent chance, Gingrich’s 8 per cent and Rick Perry’s 7 per cent. Paul has taken the lead largely thanks to a sharp decline in Gingrich’s poll numbers. Nationally, his lead over Romney has

Saturday

Jonathan Jones

Romney stretches his lead in endorsements

He may be trailing Newt Gingrich in the national polls, but there’s one metric by which Mitt Romney is dominating the 2012 Republican field: endorsements. He’s already bagged the two biggest ones announced so far: Chris Christie and Tim Pawlenty. He also has the backing of several key Republicans in New Hampshire, including current Senator Kelly Ayotte and two former Governors. And yesterday he added another big name from another early state to his list: South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. Haley’s support for Romney is not wholly unexpected: she backed him in 2008 and he endorsed her early in her campaign for Governor last year. It is significant, though: a