Sandy enters the political fray

From: david_shankbone

Ever heard Harold Wilson's saying that "a week is a long time in politics"? Back in September we were all clamouring over Mitt Romney's lame-brained handling of the attack on the American embassy in Libya which cost the Ambassador his life and how it would affect his campaign. Today, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy's destructive battering of America's east coast, this incident is all but forgotten. In fact, it had probably already been buried in voters' minds long before Hurricane Sandy decided to take the reins of the presidential campaign.

Faced with such devastation, both contenders have put a halt to their respective campaigns, with President Obama cancelling campaign events to stay at the White House and Mitt Romney converting an Ohio rally into a storm relief event. However, with less than a week left until election day, politics cannot be swept away as it was with the Libyan incident. Granted, as President, Obama has a firm duty to manage the disaster in the best way possible regardless of the impending election, but that does not mean that the political spotlights will not be blaring as he does his job. One cannot naively presume that Obama simply feels no added pressure from the election to nail the emergency response. He may not want to appear as if he is overtly politicising the disaster, but he is most certainly aware that a good show of leadership, sympathy and competence is fundamentally political, and thus inextricably forms part of his campaign. As Mark Mardell from the BBC points out, Hurricane Sandy "puts the spotlight on President Obama as a leader in a time of crisis – both in terms of deeds and words." In effect, appearing to put politics aside is a fundamentally strategic political act; it is about being a president, and thus a political leader of a country. As such, failure to rise to the occasion will have political costs but it also presents a great opportunity to make a last stand in a neck-and-neck race. In fact, according to The Economist/YouGov poll 36% of respondents would describe Obama as “strong” and Romney follows close behind with 34%. So it is all the more important for Obama to rise up to the challenge, especially since the percentage of Americans who view him as a strong and decisive leader has steadily decreased since 2009, when it stood at 73% according to a Gallup poll.Sure, Obama did say that “I am not worried at this point on the impact on the election. I’m worried about the impact on families and our first responders. The election will take care of itself next week.” Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that natural disasters have political repercussions, particularly for presidents who have to take the lead.

For Mitt Romney there is less to be gained (and lost) as the media will not be interested in any speech he makes and he is not faced with one of the greatest challenges of his career. In fact, Hurricane Sandy has pushed him into the sidelines and putting politics aside is a less "political" act for him than it is for Obama. Whereas Romney's show of good taste by turning his rally into a relief event is only the minimum to be expected from him, it will not really score him any political points. Because of this he will resume campaigning today. Obama, on the other hand, will not resume his campaign but the fundamental difference is that he does not need to. Every decision taken with regards to the disaster relief will feed into his campaign whether he likes it or not. His last act before the election will simply be to do his job.

The EU must live up to its vision

It has been a while since the EU hit the front page on a happy note. Yet the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to the EU was as unexpected as it was puzzling. In fact, the decision follows the trend started when the committee awarded it to US President Barack Obama whilst his country was embroiled in two wars, but at least the US is not mired in an existential crisis. The beleaguered EU was praised for contributing to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe over six decades. The EU, said the Nobel committee, has helped transform Europe “from a continent of war to a continent of peace.”

The EU must be given its due. War between France and Germany is now unthinkable, and the EU became a model to aspire to for Eastern European countries emerging from their Communist regimes. Moreover, it helped countries such as Spain, Portugal and Greece to make the transition from dictatorship to democracy. So far so good.

Since the eruption of the euro crisis over two years ago, however, the EU has failed time and time again to demonstrate the leadership and visionary decision-making that it ought to have to be worthy of this prize. The crisis engulfing the eurozone threatens not just the 17 countries within it, but the whole European integration project as has been reiterated by none other than the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But let us leave aside the economics and focus on the politics for an instant.

 Instead of seeking to promote a sense of unity and reignite that spark that will make our eyes glaze over with delight for an “ever close union”, the discourse in Europe is smeered by acrimonious references to fiscal sinners and saints. Anti-Germans aver that Germany has reaped all the benefits of the euro at the expense of its southern neighbours and is refusing to pay its share of the deal by stymieing efforts at creating a banking union or recapitalising troubled banks. The creditors retort that they successfully implemented tough structural reforms to improve their competitiveness whilst southerners squandered their cheap money left, right and centre. Not only, but they are also the ones with the deep pockets for the bailout funds, so unless these feckless southerners want to see their lifeline cut they ought to stop yakking on about Germany needing to boost its domestic demand and get on with some reforms themselves. This effect of this damaging talk should not be underestimated, especially considering that Europe desperately needs to garner some popular support in order to progress with integration where it is needed most. Given that austerity measures are presented as the price for continued eurozone membership, short-sighted European leaders are saving face whilst not only stalling the integration process but unravelling it.

 Moreover, the EU’s appalling handling of the crisis has abetted the rise of populist and extremist parties such as the Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party which feeds on the hated troika of technocrats making repeated visits to ensure the shattered country is strangling its economy just a little more. Italian newspaper Il Giornale ran a front page that denounced a German “Fourth Reich” whilst Greek protesters greeted Angela Merkel in Nazi uniforms when she visited Athens.

Centrifugal forces have also strengthened in the EU as a result of the crisis. Britain has slowly but steadily been distancing itself from the union and populist parties everywhere are jumping on the euroscepticism bandwagon to capitalise on voter discontent and waggle their accusatory fingers at the EU. The economic pain wrought by relentless austerity measures, which are doing nothing to stop Greek GDP plunging by a whopping 5% a year, is accompanied by increasing social tensions as citizens take to the streets in an often violent fashion. In Spain the anti-austerity protests have revived secessionist feelings in Catalonia which have done nothing to assuage markets on Spain’s precarious financial position. Catalonia, in fact, accounts for a fifth of the country’s economy. With unemployment in both Greece and Spain over 25%, the potential for social unrest is high.

This is not the track record of an organisation that continues to advance peace and democracy. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize is therefore a boon which European leaders have rightly grabbed on to (admittedly with a degree of desperation) but it is a stark reminder of the gargantuan task they have ahead of them. National politicians need to stop belittling the EU whenever it suits their political strategies and work harder to present the austerity measures not only as a steep price for continued membership of the eurozone, but as part of a more long-term process of rectifying a country’s finances which needed to be done anyways (that is, if national politicians want to continue with such draconian austerity measures in the face of their lukewarm success). If Angela Merkel decides to show the requisite leadership for battling the flames engulfing the continent and actually act on the “inspiration” the Nobel Peace Prize gave her to press ahead with closer integration, then she, and others, will need to work collectively to close the democratic deficit of the EU when this risks fuelling existing divisions. At this stage of rising popular resentment with the EU and dangerous nationalism, further integration is unthinkable if the EU’s legitimacy is not enhanced first. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize was merely the starting gun.