How Trump Made the Hateful Fringe Mainstream

Over the years as I have traveled overseas it has often been interesting to get a foreign perspective on American politics and politicians.   The comments have run from admiration for Barack Obama more recently to comments that "America deserves better" while in Canada back in the 2008 prior that year's presidential election.  Back in the Reagan years when I traveled extensively as in-house counsel for an oil company, it was a mixed bag.   When not traveling, foreign publications are the next best window into foreign thinking on the madness that is American politics, especially in 2016. A piece in The Economist, a well respected British publication, shows the dismay that many of America's allies and members of the international business community feel towards Donald Trump and his frightening supporters.  Here are article highlights:

FIRST, an apology, or rather a regret: The Economist would prefer not to advertise the rantings of racists and cranks. Unfortunately, and somewhat astonishingly, the Alt-Right—the misleading name for a ragtag but consistently repulsive movement that hitherto has flourished only on the internet—has insinuated itself, unignorably, into American politics. That grim achievement points to the reverse sway now held by the margins, of both ideology and the media, over the mainstream. It also reflects the indiscriminate cynicism of Donald Trump’s campaign.

Much of the Alt-Right’s output will seem indecipherably weird to those unfamiliar with the darker penumbras of popular culture. It has its own iconography and vernacular, derived from message boards, video games and pornography. Its signature insult is “cuckservative”, directed at Republicans supposedly emasculated by liberalism and money.

One of the Alt-Right’s pastimes is to intimidate adversaries with photoshopped pictures of concentration camps; a popular Alt-Right podcast is called “The Daily Shoah”. To their defenders, such outrages are either justified by their shock value or valiantly transgressive pranks. Jokes about ovens, lampshades and gas chambers: what larks!

Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, an extremist website, dismisses these antics as “youthful rebellion”. (Mr Taylor is also involved with the Council of Conservative Citizens, which Dylann Roof cited as an inspiration for his racist massacre in Charleston last year.) But the substance behind the sulphur can seem difficult to pin down. The term Alt-Right, reputedly coined in 2008 by Richard Spencer of the National Policy Institute, a bogus think-tank, encompasses views from libertarianism to paleoconservatism . . .

Yet from the quack ideologues to the out-and-proud neo-Nazis, some Alt-Right tenets are clear and constant. It repudiates feminism with misogynistic gusto. It embraces isolationism and protectionism. Above all, it champions white nationalism, or a neo-segregationist “race realism”, giving apocalyptic warning of an impending “white genocide”. Which, of course, is really just old-fashioned white supremacism in skimpy camouflage.

That is why the term Alt (short for “alternative”) Right is misleading. Mr Taylor—whom Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a watchdog, describes as the movement’s “intellectual leader”—says it represents an alternative to “egalitarian orthodoxy and to neutered ‘conservatives’.”

[I]t is the latest iteration in an old, poisonous strain of American thought, albeit with new enemies, such as Muslims, enlisted alongside the old ones. “Fifty years ago these people were burning crosses,” says Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League. . . . Online, they have achieved sufficient density to warrant wider attention. There, too, they and Mr Trump found each other.

The association precedes Mr Trump’s hiring as his campaign manager of Stephen Bannon, former boss of Breitbart News, a reactionary news website that Mr Bannon reportedly described as “the platform for the Alt-Right”, and which has covered the movement favourably. Already Mr Trump had echoed the Alt-Right’s views on Muslims, immigration, trade and, indeed, Vladimir Putin, whom Alt-Righters ludicrously admire for his supposed pursuit of Russia’s national interest. Pressed about these shared prejudices (and tweets), Mr Trump has denied knowing what the Alt-Right is, even that it exists—unable, as usual, to disavow any support, however cretinous, or to apply a moral filter to his alliances or tactics.

Mr Trump’s rise and the Alt-Right were both cultivated by the kamikaze anti-elitism of the Tea Party, rampant conspiracy theories and demographic shifts that disconcert some white Americans.

Unquestionably, however, Mr Trump has bestowed on this excrescence a scarcely dreamed-of prominence. As Hillary Clinton recently lamented, no previous major-party nominee has given America’s paranoid fringe a “national megaphone”. Many on the Alt-Right loved that speech: “it was great,” says Mr Griffin. “She positioned us as the real opposition.” Because of Mr Trump, the Alt-Right thinks it is on the verge of entering American politics as an equal-terms participant. “He is a bulldozer who is destroying our traditional enemy,” says Mr Griffin. Mr Trump may not be Alt-Right himself, but “he doesn’t have to be to advance our cause.”

Suffice it to say than many in America's longest ally other than France, are appalled by Mr. Trump, as should sane, decent Americans.

Can Hillary Clinton Fix America's Economy?

The title to this blog post tracks the title of an article in the British magazine, The Economist.  As I have often noted, UK publications often seem to give more thoughtful coverage to America that one can find in American publications.  The analysis in this case urges Hillary to be bolder, yet nothing as dramatic as Bernie Sander's supposed cures for America's ills.  The piece also notes that Hillary has put forward the most detailed plans of what she would do and has striven to make the numbers add up - something in short supply in Sanders' proposals and totally missing in the various GOP candidates' voodoo economic proposals. Here are some article highlights:

Mrs Clinton is experienced. In an age of extremes she has remained resolutely centrist. Yet, rather than thrilling to the promise of taking the White House or of electing  or of electing America’s first woman president, many Democrats seem joyless..

And America as a whole is seething with discontent. It may dodge putting a populist, an ideological extremist or a socialist in the White House in 2017. But, if voters’ anger remains unabated, it will not do so for much longer.

Mrs Clinton needs a bold plan to counter this popular frustration. Alas, judging by her economic policies so far, she is more inclined to tinker. 

To gauge Mrs Clinton’s programme, start with the Clintonomics that her husband pursued in the mid-1990s. Broadly, it got the big things right by transforming a tax-and-spend party into one that took deficits seriously. Under Bill Clinton, the Democrats made peace with Wall Street and free trade, and agreed to ambitious welfare reform. Thanks to these sensible policies, and the fortuitous tailwind of higher productivity growth, the economy boomed and prosperity was shared. 

America today is more divided; its economy is weaker and beset by problems. Since 2000 most workers’ incomes have stagnated, even as those of the richest have soared. Scarred by the financial crisis, battered by technological change and globalisation, less-skilled workers have fared worst. Many have left the labour force (54% of over-25s with only a high-school education are in work, down from 63% in 2000). An opioid epidemic is lowering their life expectancy. 

The Democratic Party looks different, too. 

Faced with all this, what are Mrs Clinton’s ideas? A lesser candidate would have veered to the left. Yet, even as Mr Sanders has proposed a top rate of tax of almost 70% and wants to scrap the trade pact with Canada and Mexico, Mrs Clinton has largely stood her ground. When she sets out to create “strong growth, fair growth, and long-term growth”, her rhetoric is hard to fault. In her plans to make college more affordable, grant paid leave to parents, introduce a $12 federal minimum wage and increase infrastructure spending, she has the rudiments of an agenda that does not stray too far to the left.

But next to the ills they are supposed to correct, Mrs Clinton’s solutions too often seem feeble. . . . Sometimes, her policies are fiddly. Rightly fearing that some Wall Street banks are too big to fail, Mrs Clinton wants an extra tax on their debt. Making sure banks hold enough capital and scaling back the tax-deductibility of interest on all firms’ debt would do the job better and be simpler. 

Her plans for personal income tax, which would take the top federal rate to around 45%, are equally complex, as is a proposed change to tax on the capital gains of long- and short-term investors, which looks like a solution to a non-existent problem. 

Mrs Clinton can be bold when she chooses. She has proposed reforms to criminal justice that would lead to fewer non-violent offenders ending up in jail. This has attracted criticism, because it underlines how, in the 1990s, she backed her husband’s hardline views on crime. 

In fact, she should be willing to overturn applecarts more often. . . . .Losers from globalisation and technological change need more ambitious support, from wage insurance to retraining and help to relocate for work. A big expansion of the earned-income tax credit—a kind of negative income tax—would be a start. More generally, Mrs Clinton should aim for a tax system that is efficient as well as progressive by stripping out deductions, including popular ones like mortgage-interest relief. 

To be clear, we are holding Mrs Clinton to a higher standard than other candidates. She has released more detailed plans than anyone else and made more effort to make the sums behind them add up. But she needs a compelling pitch because, if Americans concluded that the only way to bring radical change was to elect a Trump, Cruz or Sanders, it would represent a disastrous failure of the political centre. 

We are also asking her to be ambitious just when Washington has been plagued by gridlock and obstruction for its own sake. Yet the mess the Republican Party has got itself into may present Mrs Clinton with a chance to reshape the nation. What a shame if her ideas were too small to seize it.

I would like to see Hillary be bolder while still focusing on what can actually be accomplished.  In addition, she does need to formulate a bold vision  can offset the lies and disinformation of the GOP which is still peddling the same failed voodoo economics of the 1980's. 

The Economist: The Economic Detriments of Anti-LGBT Discrimination

via WikiCommons/Daniel Chapma, Chensiyuan, Dmitry Andeev

The Economist is a well respected British magazine that includes serious stories and articles so often missing from American publications.  Thus, it is significant that the magazine will be hosting the world's first ever global summit on the detrimental economic effects of LGBT discrimination.  The event will take place March of 2016 with simultaneous sessions in New York, London and Hong Kong.  Past studies have shown that anti-LGBT discrimination and persecution hold localities and nations back economically.  It's a message that the Republican Party refuses to hear, especially in economically depressed areas - e.g., Southwest Virginia - where the GOP dominates and furthers discrimination that keeps progressive businesses from thinking twice about relocating to the regions.  Here are highlights from Out Magazine on the summit: 

The United Kingom-based Economist announced that it will be hosting the world's first ever global summit on the detrimental economic effects of LGBT discrimination in March of 2016. The 24-hour rolling event, Pride and Prejudice, will be held concurrently across three continents, in New York City, London, and Hong Kong. It's professed aim is to "challenge policymakers and industry leaders to rethink the future of the global LGBT movement and its impact on business."

Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist told Gay Star News:

"The Economist has long supported equal rights for LGBT individuals. Nearly 20 years ago in our cover story, ‘Let them wed’, we argued in favor of same-sex marriage. Progress since then has been huge but uneven—hence the need for a global conversation on the costs of LGBT discrimination."

Elena Sukacheva, a Senior Vice President, added:

"The Economist will drive to uncover the true cost of discrimination to businesses and communities through research and discussion with a wider array of stakeholders than ever before, including business, politics, academia and civic society. Three consecutive events within a 24-hour period will be a first for the group."

From its website for the event, the Economist states in part as follows:

Businesses see competitive advantage in creating a reputation for inclusiveness. Yet global acceptance of LGBT people is not evenly distributed. Worldwide, the situation ranges from mild intolerance to hostile rejection and violence. In many businesses, the “glass closet” remains a formidable barrier to advancement or authenticity. Discussion about same-sex relationships is controversial in many countries, but in a globalised world, gay rights are now a significant issue.

Companies in competitive, talent-driven sectors like banking and the law have developed sophisticated policies to ensure LGBT inclusion, while other businesses struggle quietly with the need to manage diverse workforces. Apple, one of the world’s most innovative companies, believes the creativity associated with diversity helps drive its success. Can inclusive workplace policies give other companies the same advantage?

Participants in Hong Kong, London and New York will take part is a series of globally oriented conversations and tackle the thorny questions pertinent to their region, with a common question in mind: what is the cost of LGBT discrimination?

The Economist Endorses Obama - Math Does Still Matter

I continue to be amazed at the Republicans who keep saying the nation's budget deficit has exploded under Obama - obviously they have "romnesia" about the real budget busters: Chimperator George Bush and Emperor Palpatine Cheney.  Worse yet, the foam at the mouth about what will happen to the budget deficit if Obama is reelected.  Meanwhile, they have done nothing to check the impossible math of Mitt "I'm a Liar" Romney's proposals.  Between the promised tax cuts and huge increases in defense spending Romney has promised, the budget deficit would utterly explode.  One can only assume that they have imbibed far too much Kool-Aid laced with mind altering drugs or that they live in an alternate universe where simple math doesn't exist.  Well, the Economist HAS done the math and in large part because Romney would be a financial disaster deficit wise, the Economist has endorsed Barack Obama for reelection.  The entire endorsement is worth a read because it looks honestly - and critically - at Obama's record but nonetheless concludes that Romney/Ryan would be far worse.  Here are some excerpts:

[T]his choice turns on two questions: how good a president has Mr Obama been, especially on the main issues of the economy and foreign policy? And can America really trust the ever-changing Mitt Romney to do a better job? On that basis, the Democrat narrowly deserves to be re-elected.

Mr Obama’s first term has been patchy. On the economy, the most powerful argument in his favour is simply that he stopped it all being a lot worse. America was in a downward economic spiral when he took over, with its banks and carmakers in deep trouble and unemployment rising at the rate of 800,000 a month. His responses—an aggressive stimulus, bailing out General Motors and Chrysler, putting the banks through a sensible stress test and forcing them to raise capital (so that they are now in much better shape than their European peers)—helped avert a Depression. That is a hard message to sell on the doorstep when growth is sluggish and jobs scarce; but it will win Mr Obama some plaudits from history, and it does from us too.

Two other things count, on balance, in his favour. One is foreign policy, where he was also left with a daunting inheritance.  .  .  .  .  The other qualified achievement is health reform. Even to a newspaper with no love for big government, the fact that over 40m people had no health coverage in a country as rich as America was a scandal.

Mr Obama’s shortcomings have left ample room for a pragmatic Republican, especially one who could balance the books and overhaul government. Such a candidate briefly flickered across television screens in the first presidential debate. This newspaper would vote for that Mitt Romney, just as it would for the Romney who ran Democratic Massachusetts in a bipartisan way (even pioneering the blueprint for Obamacare). The problem is that there are a lot of Romneys and they have committed themselves to a lot of dangerous things.

Take foreign policy. In the debates Mr Romney stuck closely to the president on almost every issue. But elsewhere he has repeatedly taken a more bellicose line.   .  .  .  .  Mr Romney seems too ready to bomb Iran, too uncritically supportive of Israel and cruelly wrong in his belief in “the Palestinians not wanting to see peace”. The bellicosity could start on the first day of his presidency, when he has vowed to list China as a currency manipulator—a pointless provocation to its new leadership that could easily degenerate into a trade war.

[F]ar from being the voice of fiscal prudence, Mr Romney wants to start with huge tax cuts (which will disproportionately favour the wealthy), while dramatically increasing defence spending. Together those measures would add $7 trillion to the ten-year deficit. He would balance the books through eliminating loopholes (a good idea, but he will not specify which ones) and through savage cuts to programmes that help America’s poor (a bad idea, which will increase inequality still further). At least Mr Obama, although he distanced himself from Bowles-Simpson, has made it clear that any long-term solution has to involve both entitlement reform and tax rises. Mr Romney is still in the cloud-cuckoo-land of thinking you can do it entirely through spending cuts.

Mr Romney’s more sensible supporters explain his fiscal policies away as necessary rubbish, concocted to persuade the fanatics who vote in the Republican primaries . . . . However, even if you accept that Romneynomics may be more numerate in practice than it is in theory, it is far harder to imagine that he will reverse course entirely. . . . . Mr Romney, like Mr Hollande, will have his party at his back—and a long record of pandering to them.

Indeed, the extremism of his party is Mr Romney’s greatest handicap. The Democrats have their implacable fringe too: look at the teachers’ unions. But the Republicans have become a party of Torquemadas, forcing representatives to sign pledges never to raise taxes, to dump the chairman of the Federal Reserve and to embrace an ever more Southern-fried approach to social policy.

As a result, this election offers American voters an unedifying choice. Many of The Economist’s readers, especially those who run businesses in America, may well conclude that nothing could be worse than another four years of Mr Obama. We beg to differ. For all his businesslike intentions, Mr Romney has an economic plan that works only if you don’t believe most of what he says. That is not a convincing pitch for a chief executive. And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America’s economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him.

Romney: What Does He Really Believe?

As a Politico article discusses, the GOP continues to fret over Mitt Romney's "image."   The key problem according to Politico:

Romney’s inability so far to counter President Barack Obama’s efforts to portray him as an out-of-touch elitist who got rich through predatory business practices is perhaps his biggest general election hurdle, many top Republicans here said Monday.

Perhaps the core of the problem is that Romney IS what the Obama campaign has sought to depict him to be.  It does seem that money is the only thing that gets Romney passionate.  That and avoiding taxes in any and every way possible.  And Ann "Marie Antoinette" Romney isn't much better.  A thoughtful article by The Economist tries to decipher what Romney really believes in and that august business magazine  found it was an impossible task:

WHEN Mitt Romney was governor of liberal Massachusetts, he supported abortion, gun control, tackling climate change and a requirement that everyone should buy health insurance, backed up with generous subsidies for those who could not afford it. Now, as he prepares to fly to Tampa to accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president on August 30th, he opposes all those things.

All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it (see article).

But competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would that Candidate Romney had indeed presented himself as a solid chief executive who got things done. Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected. In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop . . . 

There are some areas where Mr Romney has shuffled to the right unnecessarily. In America’s culture wars he has followed the Republican trend of adopting ever more socially conservative positions.

The damage done to a Romney presidency by his courting of the isolationist right in the primaries could prove more substantial. He has threatened to label China as a currency manipulator on the first day of his presidency. Even if it is unclear what would follow from that, risking a trade war with one of America’s largest trading partners when the recovery is so sickly seems especially mindless. Some of his anti-immigration policies won’t help, either. And his attempts to lure American Jews with near-racist talk about Arabs and belligerence against Iran could ill serve the interests of his country (and, for that matter, Israel’s).

In theory, Mr Romney has a detailed 59-point economic plan. In practice, it ignores virtually all the difficult or interesting questions (indeed, “The Romney Programme for Economic Recovery, Growth and Jobs” is like “Fifty Shades of Grey” without the sex).

Which bits of Mr Ryan’s scheme does he agree with? It is a little odd that the number two has a plan and his boss doesn’t. And it is all very well promising to repeal Barack Obama’s health-care plan and the equally gargantuan Dodd-Frank act on financial regulation, but what exactly will Mr Romney replace them with—unless, of course, he thinks Wall Street was well-regulated before Lehman went bust?

Mr Romney may calculate that it is best to keep quiet: the faltering economy will drive voters towards him. It is more likely, however, that his evasiveness will erode his main competitive advantage. A businessman without a credible plan to fix a problem stops being a credible businessman. So does a businessman who tells you one thing at breakfast and the opposite at supper. Indeed, all this underlines the main doubt: nobody knows who this strange man really is.

[H]e has a lot of questions to answer in Tampa.

He does indeed, and I'm not expecting to see any honest or revealing answers.  Whatever comes down, will be more cynically calculated PR propaganda.

Coverage of Taliban Bob's Thesis Goes International

I use several Google search agents to find stories on varying topics, one of which focuses on Virginia and gays. I was rather surprised this morning to find that the venerable British publication, the Economist, has now done a story on Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell's thesis, thereby exposing the religious right insanity in Virginia to the entire world wide business community. Obviously, one of the tasks of the next governor of Virginia will be to work to create new jobs and attract progressive businesses to the Commonwealth. Having a governor now known throughout the business world as at theocratic whack job doesn't strike me as a positive when Virginia is trying to recruit business relocations to the state. Low taxes go only so far in attracting businesses and a backward and intolerant perception of the state will not make it attractive to many businesses or their key staff members. Companies do NOT want to relocate to areas where their key personnel will refuse to move. One need only look to parts of Virginia like Martinsville with 20% unemployment as an example of how being culturally reactionary is not a positive for recruiting new businesses. Here are some highlights from the Economist:

*

SOMETIMES it seems that the candidates for governor of Virginia aren’t running against each other. They’re running away from other people. The Democratic candidate, Creigh Deeds, is fleeing from Barack Obama and his health-care plan. His Republican rival, Bob McDonnell, is hectically distancing himself from—well, himself.

*
Over more than two decades in public life, Mr McDonnell has been a reliable social and religious conservative. He successfully diverted attention from his flinty views by playing to voters’ worries about the economy and too much change in Washington. At one point he held a double-digit lead in the polls. Mr Deeds struggled to compete with him—until, at the end of August, he was handed a gift by the candidate himself.

*

It came in the form of a long-forgotten 1989 graduate thesis. Mr McDonnell made the mistake of mentioning its existence to the Washington Post; the paper lost no time in splashing it. Its tone is not going down well in the Washington suburbs, where many of Virginia’s voters live.

*

As a lawmaker and, later, Virginia’s attorney-general, Mr McDonnell did not forget his research paper. He clamped down on abortion, resisted anti-discrimination protections for gay public employees and aligned the state government with breakaway Episcopal parishes after the appointment of an openly gay bishop. Now, however, he is in hot-disavowal mode.

*

His professed conversion was apparently meant to soothe independents. But it may rattle the Republican base. Patrick McSweeney, a former state party chairman, told the Post that Mr McDonnell risks losing votes for retracting his previous views. He can’t win. Mr Deeds, backed by the Democratic National Committee, is fanning the fire with glee. He intends first to reduce Mr McDonnell to a caricature, and then to shift the campaign’s focus to issues on which a governor can actually make a difference: transport, education and public safety.

*

Having known Bob McDonnell for 15 years, I remain convinced that his disavowal of his thesis views is not genuine. His has long been beholden to Pat Robertson - who I suspect gave him a large campaign contribution - and The Family Foundation, the Virginia affiliate of James Dobson's Neanderthal organization, Focus on the Family. I just hope moderates and independent voters wake up to who really pulls the puppet strings on Taliban Bob.

The Economist Endorses Obama

The Economist has long been a respected and conservative British business journal - I suspect that Sarah Palin has not only never crack the cover of an issue, but that she probably doesn't even know what The Economist is. It cannot be called socialist or liberal by any of the typical definitions thrown out by the GOP and far right in the USA to demonize Democrats. Thus, it is all the more noteworthy that The Economist has endorsed Obama as the best pick to lead the USA back to a sounder business/financial footing. Worse yet, it slams McCain/Palin. Here are some highlights:

*

The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack. For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence.

*

At the beginning of this election year, there were strong arguments against putting another Republican in the White House. A spell in opposition seemed apt punishment for the incompetence, cronyism and extremism of the Bush presidency. Conservative America also needs to recover its vim. Somehow Ronald Reagan’s party of western individualism and limited government has ended up not just increasing the size of the state but turning it into a tool of southern-fried moralism.

*

[T]he Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as “agents of intolerance” now embraces theocratic culture warriors. . . . Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found wanting. . . . The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness.

*

Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. America’s allies would rally to him.

*

There is no getting around the fact that Mr Obama’s résumé is thin for the world’s biggest job. But the exceptionally assured way in which he has run his campaign is a considerable comfort. It is not just that he has more than held his own against Mr McCain in the debates. A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and outfought the two mightiest machines in American politics—the Clintons and the conservative right.

*

On the financial crisis his [Obama's] performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

*

[T]his cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait.