The US Presidential election

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Romney would certainly not be my choice for Republican Presidential candidate, but it seems he is America's last hope to defeat the scourge of socialism.

Obviously Mumsnet would collectively vote Obama over Romney, but in the real world, amongst poor white voters who will decide swing states, Romney seems to be ekeing out a decent lead.

I also think a Romney presidency would be far better for Britain than Obama.

It's a shame that Paul Ryan or Marco Rubio weren't contenders, really.

America is hardly socialist. At best you could describe the Democrats as 'slightly left of centre'.

Actually anywhere other than the USA, Obama is decidedly right of centre.

Also being British I really don't see socialism as that bad. I'd be quite happy to live in Sweden for example.

Poor whites in the US could do with realising that in most other countries they would get: better health care, better education, live longer and have more opportunities.

I didn't even realise they'd settled on candidates yet.

The final outcome of the election in November will be important. But it's too remote really to be interested in every twist and turn of a foreign election (apologies to US MNetters, for whom this is an issue of a different level of importance, but this is a British site and most posters are British).

Is there a socialist candidate then?

Romney is using terms such as creative destruction to excuse the fact that he has made money out of making working class American unemployed through his private equity firm. A phrase he has coined from Marx but thinks the ordinary electorate are too stupid to understand.

Why would you think that Romney is better for Britain than Obama?

He has surrounded himself with Bush'es foreign policy neocons, and is slavishly promising Israel that Israel can do whatever it wants in the region.

A war with Iran is MUCH more likely under Romney than under Obama.

How would that be good for Britain? Genuinely curious as to why you'd think that.

I think Obama has been a very good president at the wrong time. Plus all the hoopla in the press of the first US black president etc and the fact that he is clearly an intelligent & articulate man (unlike his predecessor) made everyone perhaps have unrealistic expectations from him.

That said, a door post would have been more intelligent than Bush!

I think Obama is a lot more cautious than Romney with regards to a war in Iran so from that point of view that has to be good. We've seen enough wars in the middle east thank you very much.