Obama accomplishes 'mission impossible'
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E-mail China.org.cn, November 7, 2012
Romney misses golden opportunity
Despite staging an eye-catching comeback in the later phase of the race, Romney's presidential bid was blocked just steps away from the White House. He has to bear most of the blame for the defeat himself, as he wasted a golden opportunity to unseat Obama, who had a hard time in explaining why he deserved a second term as he failed to get the economy out of mess in the first term.
For a race that was dominated by the economic issue, Romney, a former successful businessman, naturally holds an advantage to convince American voters that he can lead the economy better than the president.
But Romney failed to adopt a viable campaign plan, by mainly focusing on attacking the president's policies, rather than producing a specific and feasible economic blueprint on how he will chart a different route to reinvigorate economic growth and create more jobs.
Romney and his aides had been struggling to dispel accusations by the Obama campaign that his plan to cut taxes, reduce government expenditure while keeping massive military spending just "does not add up" mathematically.
Disregarding the warnings about the danger of triggering a trade war with China, America's second largest trade partner, Romney kept addicted to bashing China by repeatedly threatening to designate China as a "currency manipulator" on the first day of office if elected.
The former Massachusetts governor also made several mistakes by drifting away from the central campaign theme of economy to attacking Obama on foreign policy, where Obama held strong advantage as incumbent, especially after the killing of al-Qaida's terror mastermind Osama bin Laden last May.
Romney angered his British hosts by criticizing the preparatory work for the Olympics during his visit to London, and was widely criticized for making inappropriate spontaneous attacks on the Obama administration after U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a militant attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya. He even dubbed Russia as America's No. 1 geopolitical rival, which was dismissed as outdated cold-war mentality.
These incidents simply exposed his inexperience in foreign affairs and not being ready to lead the most powerful country in the world.
Furthermore, Romney's criticism of 47 percent of Americans for relying on the government gave a fatal blow to his campaign, as it alienated many grassroots voters, while justifying the Democrats' accusation of him as being a man out of touch with common citizens.
Also, apparently Mother Nature was not on Romney's side as Hurricane Sandy struck the East Coast a week before the election and halted his momentum of rebound in favor of Obama, who was widely lauded for showing his leadership in dealing swiftly and responsibly with the disaster.
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