Obama or Romney?

As we all know, come this November, Americans will elect either Barack Obama or Mitt Romney as their new president. With the EU collapsing into a stagnant, undemocratic bureaucracy, this is an important event - or should be.

So which man will make the better president? Supporters seem to feel they know the answer to this question with quite an extraordinary degree of confidence. Misplaced confidence in my view.

Surely, political convictions aside, knowing which man will be better for America and the world in general is an impossible ask. A vote for either is either a brand preference, a bet on the future or an extremely shaky prediction about what their man is likely to achieve in office.

Because we all know that predicting the future of human affairs is generally a hopeless task. Most folk realise that events will largely dictate what Obama or Romney will do while in office. Unexpected events or expected events with unexpected impacts and ramifications – these will play the tune to which the President  dances.

It seems to me that Obama is a left-leaning Democrat and on the whole and in the long term, those on the left divert too much power into the hands of the state and their cronies, spend too much of the taxpayer’s money and promote too many wasteful projects.

It seems to me that Romney is a machine Republican and on the whole and in the long term, machine politicians divert too much power into the hands of the state and their cronies spend too much of the taxpayer’s money and promote too many wasteful projects.

If I was a US citizen, I’d vote Romney, but mainly on the principle of kicking the butt of whoever happens to be in power. Or maybe I'd toss a coin. I don’t really subscribe to the allure of taking sides or predicting the unpredictable.

I don’t believe either side has political principles either – they don’t count for anything in the modern world. There is no point swallowing the political principles of either left or right - or voting as they seem to dictate.

Moral principles? That’s another world - another planet.