US election 2012: Obama won my support – but it won’t happen again

The Daily Telegraph ^ | August 31, 2012 | Daniel Hannan, UK Member of the European Parliament

[2ndDivisionVet]

American pollsters will tell you that the presidential candidate who is in the lead going into the party conventions usually wins. Four polls last week showed a tiny lead for Barack Obama, two for Mitt Romney and one was level; all seven were well within the margin of error.

Another rule is that the Gallup poll taken 100 days before the poll foretells the winner. Only once in the past 60 years – the Bush-Dukakis race of 1988 – did that predictor fail. So, what did Gallup show on the date in question? A dead heat, with both candidates on 46 per cent.

Many Europeans wonder why Mr Obama is not comfortably ahead. Most media, both within the US and abroad, portray him as a serene statesman being shouted at by angry Tea Partiers in 18th-century fancy dress. Viewed solely through the medium of a television screen, he seems bigger than his Republican critics. They are presented as a gaggle of anti-abortionists, stump-toothed mountain men and crackpots hoarding gold against the presumed collapse of paper currencies – an extremist coalition led by a plutocrat. Seen from abroad, it looks like an election between Dr Hibbert and Montgomery Burns.

Then again, we don’t have to live with Mr Obama’s domestic policies. We see him doing what he does best: making speeches, carrying out ceremonial duties and reminding the world, simply by holding office, that America had the spirit to move in one generation from the formalised exclusion of black voters to the election of a mixed-race president.

It was largely on these grounds that I supported Mr Obama four years ago. I was distressed by the Republican Party’s abandonment of free markets for crony capitalism. I thought that Mr Obama’s election would wipe away the stain of segregation....

[jwalsh07]

Sure, Hannan is just another elitist schmuck who supports marxists because of the color AAof their skin. Screw him and those like him.

[Freee-dame]

America had the spirit to move in one generation from the formalised exclusion of black voters to the election of a mixed-race president.

How long does he think one generation is?

[musicman]

Thanks to FReeper JoeProBono for the pic!!)

[Does so]

Daniel Hannon gives magnificent Conservative speeches, and they were all over Free Republic recently. You'll remember him from as early as 2009:

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iuRoozN0qVk/0.jpg

[doug from upland]

Some of her memorable outfits are here =

http://moo-couch.blogspot.com/2010/10/happy-halloween-michelle-obama-style.html

[Reb Raider]

Daniel Hannan is a wonderful conservative speaker if you have never heard him. He wants America to get back to our roots and is only pointing out that because of media bias most Brits have the “media created Obama” in their brains, not the destructive president we know only too well. Please take the time to go listen to some of the youtube videos of him. Maybe start with CPAC 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujuEpGmKMg

I remember listening to him before the 2010 elections and I was really in a low spot about how we would survive until 2012 with our king and his media of court jesters. Daniel Hannan’s talk of the brilliance of our founders and our Constitution and the dangerous road we were on if we didn’t get back to our founding principles was inspiring and uplifting considering the circumstances. He pointed out that Europe is too far gone and doesn’t want the same fate for us.

[Daffynition]

Classic all!

Where is the Plaque in Chicago where BOTH of them were asked to give up their law licenses for cause?

[Aetius]

Add mass immigration-driven, pro-Democrat changes in the racial/ethnic demographics of the country to what you said, plus overwhelming bias from the mainstream media, and that would sufficiently answer why Romney isn’t way out ahead.

[SunkenCiv]

That must explain why he supported Obama in 2008.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[Leep]

or unless Obama drops a nuke on Iran..

---

I would consider voting for him if he did that.

[Vanders9]

And that is what Daniel Hannan says later in the article. The real question is not why Mr Obama isn’t comfortably ahead, but why Mr Romney isn’t. When 64 per cent of Americans say that they expect their standard of living to decline under Mr Obama, and when Mr Romney enjoys a 19-point lead on economic competence, the election ought to be a walkover.

And the reason he isnt is that the Democratic smoke machine and their friends in the media have so far managed to concentrate all public attention on non-economic matters - gay marriage, abortion, Todd Akin, and so on. If Romney is going to win, he has to turn the debates onto subjects that he is stronger on.

[Vanders9]

Many Americans wonder why anyone thinks we should care what Eurarabians think.

Hannan is not a "Eurarabian".

Many Americans should care, in the sense that they are far more likely to get a balanced and truthful opinion as to what is going on from the European press than they have from the US media.

[Vanders9]

Err..hold on. The comment is most media, both WITHIN the US and abroad...your media is just as culpable of dumbing down the dear pee-pul as its Euro equivalents.

[Vanders9]

Well, just remember that the opposition at the time was John McCain.

[Vanders9]

Well, the opposition was John McCain.

[jersey117]

Gallup is a lib shill. If they had it tied, Romney must be in the lead.

It was after that poll was taken that the government sued Gallup. I sure hope Romney pulls it off. I can't take another four years of not having a president.

[SunkenCiv]

Not even close.

[Vanders9]

Not what I’ve heard from several folk on these boards. And if you think about it, the better quality European press (I’m discounting some of the comics at the lower end) at least are dispassionate about US politics.