By Tim Montgomerie
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I've made my own brief case for Mitt Romney in today's Times (£). I've argued that he's far different from the demonised caricature of the Democrat ad campaign. Instead he's better-placed to end the gridlock in Washington that is preventing America from facing up to its fiscal challenges. I give examples of the ways in which Barack Obama is far from the uniting figure that is sometimes suggested.
Posted below are some of the best chunks of writing on the American election. I particularly recommend the top two quotes from David Frum and Ross Douthat - especially to any British Conservative who is supportive of Barack Obama...
Obama's recipe for America is to do what Gordon Brown did: "The country's most pressing economic problem IS the break-down of the old middle-class economy. Wages are stagnating at the middle, class lines are hardening, and more and more of the benefits of growth are claimed by the very wealthiest. President Obama delivered his answer to this problem in his important speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, a year ago: more direct government employment (at higher wages), more government contracting (to enforce higher wages), and more government aid to college students (in hope that expanding the number of degree holders will raise their average wage). Obama is following a path explored by the British Labor governments of 1997-2010, when the majority of the net new jobs created in northern and western England, Scotland, and Wales were created in the public sector. That approach pushed Britain into fiscal crisis, when the recession abruptly cut the flow of funds from south-eastern England to pay everybody else's government salary." - David Frum for the Daily Beast.
An election about the size of American government: "Already our government redistributes too much from the young to the old, from working families to retirees, from productive entrepreneurs to protected clients. To accede to this government’s permanent expansion is to walk, with eyes wide open, into the kind of economic and demographic trap that has ensnared the weaker economies of Europe today. President Obama did not single-handedly put us on this path. But he has kept us on it, accelerated our progress down it, and campaigned for re-election as though taking this course had no downsides whatsoever. He’s the candidate of the Medicare status quo in a country facing an entitlement crunch, of government bailouts in an economy with a crony capitalism problem, and of contraceptive mandates in a society with a birth dearth. For an incumbent president facing a mistrusted opposition party, this may prove a formula for a narrow electoral victory. But for the country that might vote to re-elect him, it risks four more years of drift, stagnation and decline." - Ross Douthat in the New York Times.
Continue reading "The two articles that every pro-Obama British Tory should read" »