2010 Roundup

2010 wasnt a particularly good year but all things considered everything went well.

The national situation seems to be in between the conservatists rethoric and the liberals less poignant on their usual head marks.

Obama maybe handed a second term in 2012 easily as the republicans dont have an option but to support the democrats agenda in facing a soon to come massive debt dominating the political scene.

Unemployment will not be tackled through adopting more tight policies on immigration and certainly it wont be other than a marginal consequence of a bigger public concern over foreign policy and foreign trade.

For the remaining part of this mandate, the President will keep a low profile approach to big structural reforms, such as Health Care and Social Security, focusing now on the Middle East situation, with Turkey and Iran. With a global economy slowly escaping the US control, the State Department will be doing damage control and risk management with China on the Korean explosive situation, while very soon  ascertaining the ratification of the new arms control treaty with Russia, with a dropping opposition from the conservative wing.

There is a new configuration of political forces in the US, but the radical right wing is only a reactive demonstration of populism and demaghogory that will open scene to a rather larger local and State regional policy making it a wider approach to national problems.

I expect the Democrats to retain a stable and even growing popularity amidst the general public for this year of 2011. Recent electoral upsurges in Ivory Coast, the instability in Sudan and the uprising of islamic marginalization from the epicenter of regional and international problems will certainly force the US to adopt other multilateral actions along with their Allies and the International Community, while probably and increasingly retreating from Iraq.

The Democrats seem to be dominating the backstage negotiations in Congress and the Senate while the Republicans may not have another chance but to hope for the Democrats to fall over from an excess of self confidence and wait patiently for an overturn. The results from the 2010 elections were prematurely overstated and overrated and they will be reevaluated soon in face of the Republicans expected impotence for an alternative.