Will Obama Win The Next Election?

By Carrie Williams:

The current candidates for the 2012 election are Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, incumbent Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer. It is expected that Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, will be the republican candidate, he just needs to gather more delegates to make it official. The closest competitor to Romney was Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania, who suspended his campaign this past Tuesday, April 10. Newt Gingrich’s campaign is 4.5 million in debt and thus Romney in an almost sure position as the republican frontrunner.

However, Ron Paul, the Libertarian leaning Republican, has small pockets of republican supporters throughout the country. He isn’t likely to get enough votes to get the republican vote, and is not interested in third party. But many youth support Ron Paul who claims he is “trying to save the Republican Party from themselves.” Paul appeals to young voters because he offers the prospect of radical change. He claims he will cut spending, reduce foreign aid, and doesn’t support war. As a more conservative republican, he’s makes himself a unique candidate, but I don’t think that conservative is really the direction this country is going. Ron Paul is pro-life and has been married for 50 years with hardly any government background to speak of. Yet, he could be a new and different option. On Ron Paul’s website he says that he is the only one with the chance to beat Obama. The election will be a competition between conservative and liberal. Paul needs to get the republican nomination to win. If not, then he will simply be making a statement that Romney isn’t conservative enough.

Obama is doing well and has fundraised more than twice as much as the Romney on the campaign trail. However, there are people who believe he hasn’t helped the economy. He said a growing middle class can help eliminate the gap between the rich and the poor. Some call him a socialist but I think most people don’t have a problem with him. America has spent more on defense/security in the past than on domestic issues like health and small business, which is what Obama is trying to do.

“I saw that no education policy, however well crafted, can take the place of a parent’s love and attention…So I believe deeply that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history,” Obama quoted at the Associated Press Luncheon. Some say Romney and he are creating big corporations. If Ron Paul doesn’t get the republican nomination, Mitt Romney and Obama will argue over business. Romney says Obama is creating too much government.

Obama eliminated programs that weren’t working and cut taxes for small business owners. Some perhaps did not see the changes they expected with Obama in office. He is working on fixing problems, but there are so many of them, and he just hasn’t had enough time. Obama was the underdog in the last election, and now it is Ron Paul. But Obama, I feel, still is not so ambitious to create trouble overseas and neither is Ron Paul. People want someone who isn’t pumped up with campaign funds and will care for regular people. I think that is the main appeal of both Paul and Obama. It depends on who has the best campaign, in which case, the chances of Obama’s re-election look promising. The election could end up being another blind vote of republicans or democrats voting for their respective parties. Neither candidate really knows how to solve the country’s financial problems, but I think Obama is working on making positive changes and bring “love” back into the country.