Presidential showdown now a question of trust

THE US presidential election of 2012 stands at a deadheat. Despite the US$2 billion ($2.42 billion) in advertising (90 per cent negative) by the candidates and literally untold millions by anonymous political action committees (Super PAC's), 3-5 per cent of voters remain undecided just days before the election.

What does someone need to help decide after a year or more of campaigning? The candidates' policy differences are marked, but ultimately the presidency is a test of character.

Obama has many flaws, some of personality. He often presents himself as an almost bloodless Vulcan, a Mr Spock, too smart for the rest of the people in the room. His diffidence in his first debate with Governor Romney re-energised that candidate's near-moribund campaign and brought the election to its present pass.

The liberal critic, acerbic Maureen Dowd, of the New York Times, called him Obambi in respect of his naive assumption that his mere election would somehow change the political atmosphere in Washington. Instead, it evoked the bitter backlash of racially driven intransigence reflected in the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell's declaration, early in the administration, that his objective was to deprive Obama of a second term. By regular use of senatorial tactics of filibuster, Republicans have frequently stymied Obama's legislative proposals and judicial appointments. They may succeed thereby in McConnell's goal by depriving the president of a legislative record on which to run, despite the cost to the nation's well-being.

Obama is not the hapless victim pictured by Dowd. He's possibly the worst negotiator from a position of power ever. Obama regularly starts his negotiations by conceding much of his adversary's demands. Small wonder they like to paint him as weak.

Despite the opposition and his own self-wounding, Obama has compiled a significant record, though not the transformative one he promised. He passed a comprehensive health plan, which, while it remains weak tea compared to other countries' health systems, is a first step and the only successful health reform in 40 years. His bail-out of the banks probably saved the US and the world's financial system. And his careful but muscular use of power in foreign affairs may well reflect the words of Theodore Roosevelt: "speak softly but carry a big stick [or a drone or Seal team 6]."

That said, my most serious reservations concern his unwillingness to address his predecessor's use of torture and of his own extra-constitutional execution of American citizens accused but neither tried nor convicted of terrorism. That precedent is frightening.

Mitt Romney is a shape-shifter who has been on every side of every issue. A moderate as Governor of liberal Massachusetts, who instituted the model for Obama's health care, Romney disavowed the state and his own actions running this year in Republican primaries. He proudly claimed the mantle of "very, very conservative". From a pro-choice supporter of planned parenthood he has morphed into an ardent pro-lifer heading a party whose platform quietly proscribes abortion with no exceptions for rape or incest.

His contempt for 47 per cent of his fellow citizens he labelled as "unwilling to take responsibility for their lives" was expressed privately before wealthy donors. His foreign policy credentials are as slim as Sarah Palin's when he suggests that Iran may want to occupy Syria "to get a path to the sea". Worse is the opportunistic manner he disowned his extreme positions in the days before election.

Occasionally, presidential decisions make history. This year is the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. The world then stood at the brink of atomic war. Krushchev's caution led to avoiding catastrophe.

But it was Kennedy who held out alone against his generals' advice to attack, a decision that would have led to atomic war. Instead, Kennedy cut deals with Krushchev to end the crisis.

To my fellow Americans still undecided, the question to ask is which of today's candidates would you have wanted with his finger on the button in 1962?