POTUS winner? Big corporations as ever!

I understand that UK bookmakers favor Obama in the presidential race. This is not surprising as Mitt is losing it. His biggest problem is that of being perceived as icy, out of touch and lacking in empathy. He needed a running mate that would balance this aspect of his personality; Someone like Senator Marco Rubio from Florida. Instead, he selected Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin.

Paul, like Rubio, would make a better president than VP. They are both very bright, but the similarities end there. Ryan, like Romney, comes across as ice cold. His major accomplishments in the House were to make some remarkably sound budget proposals and to make mince meat out of Obamacare. These types of activity endowed Ryan with the respect of his peers, but the public could not embrace his intellectual skills. Nor is he much of an orator. Newt Gingrich, by comparison, is also very bright, but also very articulate and capable of capturing people's imaginations. On that score, Ryan is not. It is as if we have a Romney double in the race. All in all, a risky choice. Mitt surely selected someone he could work with and respected. One large factor in the Romney/Ryan ticket is religion. Mitt comes in with a liability as a Mormon. Ryan joins as an asset; a Catholic. This choice will help Mitt cement the Catholic vote with  the possible exception of Latin Catholic votes. Latinos don't like Mitt's hard stand on immigration.

Most people agree that the final determination between O and M will be made during the debates. It is also the consensus that O is the better debater. Your bookmakers are correct as are the latest polls from both sides of the political fence. They favor O by up to 9 percentage points.

It is clear that if M hopes to win the election, he will have to come up with a new persona along with a frontal attack on O's poor track record and political philosophy. This is exactly the advice given by Charles Krauthammer who is a powerful bastion of conservative thought. He specifically stated that O's stewardship as President and his ideology define the political battleground for the upcoming election. His record is poor and rife with unkept promises. His ideology is populist at best and socialist at worst. Krauthammer noted that O's statement to the effect that entrepreneurs did not build their businesses, but their workers did encapsulates his political thinking which is anti-business and anti-rich.

Given the manner in which political life is practiced in the USA today, I am not sure whether it matters who sits in the Oval Office. The power is with the big corporations who generally have their way with both the Senate and the House. Their influence is key to understanding the manner in which we govern and it is highly unlikely that their influence will be diluted by a president as far left as O.