The American Election Day, 2016.

I am writing this blog on 3^rd November. One year hence on 1^st November, 2016, America goes to the polls. There are votes to be cast for all kinds of offices at town, city and state level. But the media will be focused on Washington DC and the race for the White House, as well as keeping an eye on Congress.

By one year hence, the candidates for President, the Senate and the House of Representatives will have fought through the primary season, attended the Party National Conventions to approve the planks and platforms and will have campaigned all the way up to Election Day. Without doubt, the losers will feel depressed. But what of the winners? Mental and physical exhaustion will dominate. Once the result is known, the adrenalin goes.

Put yourself in the position of the President-Elect. He or she will have fought for more than a year, put themselves and their families in the glare of publicity, and been examined in greater detail than pretty well anyone else on the planet. There will be no time to rest. Although much spade-work will have been done beforehand, nevertheless the President-Elect has a mere six weeks to put a new government together, which includes thousands of jobs in all departments of government. In addition, he has a legislative agenda to get ready, possibly in the face of a hostile Congress. Deals may need to be done to get legislation moving.

After inauguration, the new President might get a honeymoon period from press and television but nowadays this is more unlikely than likely. President Obama came into power in 2008 on a wave of sentiment where the bar was set so high, no one could have scaled it. Four years ago, he was given little time before the media brickbats were thrown. I applaud President Obama for many achievements, especially the Affordable Care Act, but his record is not unblemished.

I have never pretended that governing is easy. Quite the reverse, I have often written that it is extremely hard, especially in democracies like America’s where power is distributed. What the new President faces is problems left by the Bush administration and the admission by the Obama administration that some problems, like the debt, have not been challenged. In domestic policy, no solution has been found to resolve both the debt ceiling and the amounts that America borrows to finance its lifestyle. In recent years, the US has become almost self-sufficient on energy, yet its borrowing remains high. The Bush administration ran huge deficits to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, social security and healthcare. The Obama administration has been unable to tackle and reduce the debt. As the President has said, “we have kicked the can down the road.” But eventually, somebody has to pay the debt. This problem will follow the new President like an evil shadow.  

Funds in the trillions of dollars are needed to rebuild America’s infrastructure. Those of us who have enjoyed road trips know the interstates and major roads are in a poor state of repair. Take a look at the internet. There is ample evidence that America’s bridges are often closed temporarily for emergency repairs and some will have to be closed for months for major repair. Mass transit is limited to airlines. The US railroad system is patchy to non-existent. The trouble is, where will the money come from to pay for the years of neglect? The federal government will say this is a problem for the states. The states will say they have insufficient funds to fix problems. The real difficulty is that infrastructure is not on the agenda for 2016. The new President needs to lead in this area, if he or she accepts the infrastructure problems cannot be left for the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2020 or 2024. It could be good news as it will provide many jobs and borrowings will be specific and spent on capital projects, something that might appeal to both sides of the aisle.

How will the new President approach racial issues, immigration and unemployment, not to mention gun control? It’s all very well for the current crop of candidates to say they want to see America great again but half-baked policies a la Trump won’t help. These are serious issues which deserve detailed solutions and which ought to dominate the political scene. Perhaps these policies will materialize in the primaries but I doubt it. Instead, there will likely be bland generalizations where the voters will have to fill in the blanks.

As for foreign policy, in my view, the Obama administration has not scored well. It has turned its face against Israel. In Syria, it has allowed Putin and the Russians to run the show. What has it done successfully to keep ISIS at bay? At least it has reached an accord of sorts with Iran. If the new President wants to take on the role as leader of the west, then he or she has to lead in an intelligent manner. “Kicking ass” is not a policy that served G W well.

I have to say that if I was a candidate for president in 2016, I’d be thinking very hard about whether I could solve any of these problems and that, maybe, I should drop out. Fortunately, those who aspire to what FDR called “the greatest job in the world” are made of sterner stuff. I look forward to the start of the primary season in the optimistic belief that politically, things will get better.