If it hadn't been in the pocket yet, Sandy cast Obama’s victory in stone (unless he really screws up Staten Island, perhaps, or Diebold goes nuts). Not that he really needed it anymore, the economic numbers are simply not bad enough. Or perhaps we should say the public perception of the numbers isn't bad enough.
Not for America to go against a long running historical trend that says incumbents with relatively good numbers get re-elected, no matter how much further the country has been plunging down the absurd theater scale from bi-partisan to bi-polar in the past four years. Or eight, 12, 20, take your pick.
All those close neck-and-neck polls you read and hear about only seem to serve the purpose of the political establishment and the media, both of which stand to profit greatly in credibility and in monetary terms. They create the illusion that the system functions, and get people to spend billions in ads. The last thing anybody wants you to think is that it's decided way before election day.
Europe should focus on a painless as can be transition to a situation in which the hardest hit countries can leave the eurozone and still remain friends. But it's still double or nothing all the way for the leadership, an increasingly dangerous kind of blindness. The longer they delay accepting this, the more devastating the explosion will become. And not just in Europe. It will expose the facade, the mirage that the world economy has become, where keeping up appearances has become possible only through mobster accounting standards and grand theft auto from coming generations.
When the euro zone explodes, so will the rest of the world economy. Including the US. Obama doesn't have to worry about NOT getting a second term; he should instead worry about getting it, and about what's going to happen on his watch in the next four years. If he lasts in office that long.
Read more: European decline boosts Obama's image
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