Political India: Engaging America

From The Hindu

Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann, the winner of Saturday's pre-caucus straw poll in Iowa, is a supporter of the Dominionism sect, “which says Christians should rule the world”. Another frontrunner that joined the race over the weekend, Texas Governor Rick Perry, immediately launched an attack on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling him “treasonous” for wanting to print more money during the recession. And establishment-favourite Mitt Romney, a multimillionaire and former head of private equity firm Bain Capital, earlier joked with unemployed people that he too was currently unemployed.

These are some of the credentials of the leading candidates in the still-wide-open field for the nomination of the Republican presidential candidate in 2012.

While the actual caucuses, through which the nomination would be finalised, are not set to occur until early next year, the pre-caucus straw polls such as the one in Iowa are designed to build momentum for the debate and whittle down the range of candidates in the contest.

While Ms. Bachmann, a Republican Party outsider who is considered further to the right than current front runner Mr. Romney, struggled to answer queries about her remark that she was “submissive to her husband,” she outshone former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, who later announced that he would retire from the race.


A surprise result was second-place victory of party stalwart Ron Paul, a libertarian who has won approval of his party's mainstream for his “neo-isolationist foreign policy” yet has also been labelled a closet Democrat by some.

Others in the race, including Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather Pizza Company, and Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania, failed to generate any buzz and face declining prospects as 2011 rolls on.

While the candidates engaged in a debate that was at times fiercely critical, all of them were united in their condemnation of President Barack Obama, attacking all his policies from healthcare reforms described as “Obamacare” to Mr. Obama's purportedly failed plans to create more jobs in the ailing U.S. economy.

The President meanwhile launched some of his own 2012 campaign activities this week, travelling to Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois on a three-day economic bus tour in the Midwest that aimed to discuss “ways to grow the economy, strengthen the middle class and accelerate hiring in communities and towns across the nation and hear directly from Americans including small business owners, local families, private sector leaders, rural organizations, and government officials.”