The U.S. Presidential Election, Europe and the Future of U.S. European Relations: More Than Meets the Eye

At the time of writing, it is still far from certain who will prevail in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The backbone of the campaigns, unsurprisingly, consist first and foremost of assessments of Barack Obama's performance as America's CEO, and his stewardship of the U.S. economy in a time of the gravest recession since the 1930s. In addition, Obama's rivals are hoping that apart from having to run on his record, the president will also have to face from 2008, i.e., that the elevated atmosphere of hope and change that he created will come back to haunt him amidst a decisively depressed public mood, and will prevent him from mobilising the coalition that stood behind him four years ago.1 Against the backdrop of an increasingly tight race, and in spite of domestic issues and concerns dominating voters' agendas, there seems to be a clear, and possibly prominent (and transatlantic) angle to this election. Some commentators even went as far as to claim that rather than worrying about the outcome of the ballot in the so-called swing states-Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and others which are tipped as the central arenas of the Obama-Romney duel-the incumbent president should be keeping his fingers crossed for a timely and effective resolution of the eurozone crisis. Given the density of American-European ties, a economy in a nosedive could undermine the achievements of a (fragile) U.S. recovery and effectively deprive Obama of serious chances for re-election.2 However, the U.S. internal debate on the possible impact of the economic turmoil in Europe on the course of American politics extends beyond the immediate future and sheds light on the long-term role of the transatlantic partnership for the United States even as the superpower is announcing a shiftof strategic focus to Asia-Pacific, and going through a broader re-conceptualisation of its global role.This article will point to the key characteristics of the 2012 U.S. presidential race, including a growing (yet not universally acknowledged) role that Europe could play in it. Next, it will argue that a crisis-stricken eurozone runs counter to the long-standing U.S. priorities as a European power, advanced by all post-Cold War American administrations, and likely to be upheld by subsequent ones. The article concludes with a list of anxieties that will need to be addressed on both sides of the Atlantic so that the transatlantic partners approach their relationship with a clear understanding of its potential and limitations.Candidates and IssuesBarack Obama is a fairly weak incumbent, but he will be running against a Republican candidate who is viewed with unrelenting suspicion among his own ranks. Indeed, the most recent primary season was notable for the preoccupation with finding the best anti-Romney in the colourful, but otherwise rather short-winded field of GOP candidates.3 As a result, Mitt Romney was as busy fending offcriticism for his now-notorious flip-flops on issues as central to the American political discourse-and to his conservative base-as immigration, health-care or abortion, as he was preoccupied with instilling the idea of the inevitability of his candidacy into the minds of the Republican electorate. Unable to convincingly present the candidate as a firebrand conservative, the Romney campaign repeatedly either raised the argument of the arithmetic of the primary race (consisting of both the delegates secured during the primaries and the amount of cash available to the contestants), or warned against prolonging the intra-party contest to the detriment of the ability to mount an effective challenge against Obama.4 Still, as some commentators were pointing out, simply sticking to the inevitability narrative, while tactically savvy, was a rather poor long-term strategy, since it inadvertently exposed Romney's key weakness-his inability to energise the Republican base.5 Yet, for all the stabs at his political record, Romney was able to stay ahead because of the deficiencies that plagued his opponents' campaigns, and because his most serious rivals-Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich-kept splitting the Republican right, leaving it to him to convince the more moderate GOP voters that he would be their best option come November and the showdown with Obama. …