Middle East: Rascism alive in US

Al Jazeera

Poll finds fresh increase in US racism

Associated Press poll says anti-black sentiment has grown since Barack Obama's historic election victory in 2008.    Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the US elected its first black president, an Associated Press poll has found. Released on Saturday, the AP poll used a combination of explicit and implicit questions about race and found that prejudice has increased slightly since 2008. The study, conducted online by GfK Custom Research under the supervision of AP’s polling unit, included interviews with 1,071 adults between August and September 2012.    Read it at Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/10/2012102813952902929.html

UK: US elections as a spectator sport

The Independent

The weird maths that add up to the White House

Out of America: The result is too close to call, and could even be a tie that will make for edge-of-the-seat election viewing

You have to admit, first- past-the-post is more fun. Elections decided by direct popular vote and proportional representation may be "fairer" and more "democratic" – but what's an election night when a computer tells you who has won, or how many seats each party will have, within moments of the polls closing?

I have covered elections in France and Germany, Greece and Italy (as well as the Gorbachev-era Soviet Union). But for suspense and great viewing on election night, nothing beats a system when the outcome is determined by a host of separate, winner-take-all contests, as in Britain and the United States. And by any standards, 6 November here promises to be a thriller.

Read it at The Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-weird-maths-that-add-up-to-the-white-house-8229275.html

UK: Rombie apocalypse

The Guardian

Buffy creator 'switches allegiance' to Mitt Romney in spoof video

Joss Whedon says Republican presidential candidate will usher in a 'zombie apocalypse' and turn the US into a wasteland

• David Batty

"Mitt Romney is a very different kind of candidate. One with the vision and determination to cut through the business as usual politics and finally put this country back on the path to the zombie apocalypse," he says.

Read it at The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/29/mittromney-us-elections-2012

UK: Real history vs hollow rhetoric

The Economist

Barack Obama's economic agenda

A little history lesson

Oct 25th 2012, 16:54 by M.S.

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NATIONAL REVIEW denounces the economic agenda booklet the Obama administration released yesterday. "He calls it the 'New Economic Patriotism,'" the editors write, "and if that name seems to you redolent of early-20th-century totalitarians, that may be because it is not the first N.E.P.: Lenin’s was the Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika."

Interesting reference! The Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika was a free-market economic reform package introduced by the Soviet government in 1921. It entailed a retreat from an all-state economic model in favour of institutionalised recognition of a legitimate private sector in industry and agriculture, as well as a dramatic tax cut.

Read it at The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2012/10/barack-obamas-economic-agenda

International NYT: Endorsement

PJ: I included this editorial since it reflects the lion's share of the thinking around the world about the Presidential election.  
 
International Herald Tribune

Editorial 

Barack Obama for Re-Election

 The economy is slowly recovering from the 2008 meltdown, and the country could suffer another recession if the wrong policies take hold. The United States is embroiled in unstable regions that could easily explode into full-blown disaster. An ideological assault from the right has started to undermine the vital health reform law passed in 2010. Those forces are eroding women’s access to health care, and their right to control their lives. Nearly 50 years after passage of the Civil Rights Act, all Americans’ rights are cheapened by the right wing’s determination to deny marriage benefits to a selected group of us. Astonishingly, even the very right to vote is being challenged.

That is the context for the Nov. 6 election, and as stark as it is, the choice is just as clear. 

President Obama has shown a firm commitment to using government to help foster growth. He has formed sensible budget policies that are not dedicated to protecting the powerful, and has worked to save the social safety net to protect the powerless. Mr. Obama has impressive achievements despite the implacable wall of refusal erected by Congressional Republicans so intent on stopping him that they risked pushing the nation into depression, held its credit rating hostage, and hobbled economic recovery. 

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, has gotten this far with a guile that allows him to say whatever he thinks an audience wants to hear. But he has tied himself to the ultraconservative forces that control the Republican Party and embraced their policies, including reckless budget cuts and 30-year-old, discredited trickle-down ideas. Voters may still be confused about Mr. Romney’s true identity, but they know the Republican Party, and a Romney administration would reflect its agenda. Mr. Romney’s choice of Representative Paul Ryan as his running mate says volumes about that.

Read it at the IHT
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/barack-obama-for-president.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Should the US election be renamed: Harry Potter and the November surprise

Slate Magazine

Mitt Romney Is Dolores Umbridge

My Harry Potter-obsessed 9-year-old watches the presidential campaign.

By Katie Roiphe|Posted Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012, at 1:42 PM ET

Read it at Slate:
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/roiphe/2012/10/harry_potter_presidential_campaign_romney_is_umbridge_obama_is_dumbledore.html

UK: A look at a poll guru

The Telegraph

Nate Silver, the geeky statistician who is singlehandedly dismantling the myth of Mitt-mentum

By Dan Hodges

Nate Silver is Mitt Romney’s nemesis. Not intentionally; although he admits to being an Obama supporter, his whole career is predicated on getting his predictions right. Like he did in 2008, when "Poblano" accurately predicted the result of 49 of the 50 states, and all 35 senate races.

Read it at The Telegraph:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100186641/nate-silver-the-geeky-statistician-who-is-singlehandedly-dismantling-the-myth-of-mitt-mentum/