Kieran Lawrence looks at autonomous weapons and the effect they could have on modern warfare
Continuing a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Angela Merkel
Ben Bland examines the fallout from the Iowa caucuses and looks forward to the New Hampshire primaries.
In the first of a series on world leaders, Miles Deverson takes a look at Nicholas Sarkozy
As ever the Republican Primaries are managing to make the political commentators of the world laugh, think, cry and despair all at the same time.
With opposition to Barack Obama from the Grand Old Party almost at an all-time high this should be the Republican opportunity to make serious headway on the nation before the Presidential elections next year. Instead the party is struggling to find any candidate that looks likely to win the everyman (and woman) vote and dump Obama out of office at the 2012 election.
As ever most of the Republican candidates are readily equipped with the seeming prerequisites the party demands nowadays; extreme views and/or extreme dimness. The candidate debate on Saturday over the issues of foreign and security policy highlighted that both of these qualities are available in more than adequate supplies. More worrying to the party will be the lack of any individual who one could seriously imagine winning over the hearts and minds of the population.
Potential front-runner Mitt Romney seems determined to play it safe, too safe. It is hard to imagine him looking good opposite the sharp style of Obama. Former pizza executive Herman Cain has been dogged by sexual harassment allegations and on Saturday showed world knowledge that would make George W. Bush look like Alan Whicker. Newt Gingrich is both too old and too boring whilst Rick Perry is too prone to making comments that baffle anyone other than hard-line conservatives.
Looking around the rest of the room at the likes of Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum it is hard to see where a potential Republican victor is going to come from. Each candidate is either too divisive (usually for both the party itself and the nation) or, for want of a better expression, too meek.
None of the individuals have policies that are going to win over average Americans with their very boldness or even with their very practicalities. Few of the individuals have a persona that is likely to make the difference to an American citizen between voting and staying at home. Those that do seem have this effect merely because of the extremity of their views. For a campaign that should be about taking Obama down, this is becoming more and more a campaign about getting as close to Obama as possible.
Of course, a large reason Obama won in 2008 was his enormous financial resources and his innovative campaigning. There is obviously no reason to suggest that the victor of the Republican primaries will not be able to compete through such methods but the prospects of that happening seem very, very unlikely.
In many ways the Republican primaries are already looking like a race to become the runner-up to President Obama in 2012, a situation that would have seemed unlikely after the Congressional elections last year.
Currently it seems that, much like in 1996, the GOP is going to fall foul of failing to produce a candidate that has the all-round credentials for the Presidency. It will be fascinating to see if the campaign can yet produce a candidate to stand head and shoulders above the competition.
Good article. I think that Obama will win next year, and to be honest if Romney wasn't good enough in 2008 then why should it be any different this time around?
A characteristic of US politics seems to be the public's fondness of split government, with one party holding Congress and the other holding the Presidency. It would seem unlikely that the GOP will lose their Congressional majority because they are a party that will be able to appeal to local people, but finding a candidate to galvinise the US public will prove far more difficult. Besides, it is Congress which controls the US purse, not the President, and I would say that Obama's foreign policy agenda will appeal more to the public than any GOP candidate.
Seems to me that the public will put the GOP into Congress and let them control the money, whilst leaving Obama to deal with foreign policy issues.
Herman Cain is actually facing sexual assault allegation now, on top of the sexual harrassment.
Seems like a shoe-in.
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