There is a long and dishonourable tradition of religious prejudice in American presidential elections. Catholics running for office have borne the brunt. Democratic candidate Al Smith was subjected to…
Volunteers work the phones to “get out the vote” for the Romney/Ryan campaign in Virginia.
EPA/Shawn Thew
Hurricane Sandy will leave more than physical destruction in its wake. Arriving just days before the US presidential election, the storm could have a political fallout as well. Sandy has affected the key…
Mitt Romney outside 10 Downing Street during his gaffe-plagued trip to Europe earlier this year.
EPA/Neil Munns
There is less than a week to go in the US presidential race, and the candidates are coming agonisingly close in various battleground states. Imagining Mitt Romney in the White House might turn a few Democrat…
As New York City firefighters look over two houses struck by trees in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, both Republicans and Democrats worry about the impact on voter turnout.
EPA/Justin Lane
On November 4, 1979 when Jimmy Carter’s presidency depended on gaining the freedom of the US hostages held by Iranian student militants, he was unable to achieve this goal even when it looked like the…
Mitt Romney campaigns in the crucial swing state of Ohio, one of a number of states which will decide the presidency.
EPA/Shawn Thew
With eight days until the US presidential election, Mitt Romney seems to have a very slight edge in the national polls. However, every respectable poll aggregator, along with all the betting and futures…
Every four years, bemused Australians endeavour to come to terms with the Electoral College voting system for the President of the United States. While Americans vote directly for most political officeholders…
President Barack Obama would be well advised to catch some sleep on the plane during his whirlwind tour.
EPA/Michael Reyonds
Politicians of all persuasions often claim they need little sleep to lead their nations. Thatcher, Hawke, Abbott, Rudd, Berlusconi and Clinton are all examples of this “on the job 24 hours per day” club…
President Barack Obama casts his vote in Chicago.
EPA/Brian Cassella
Welcome to part eight of our Race to the White House podcast series. Each week we’ll be talking to Australia’s top US experts on the ins and outs of the 2012 US presidential campaign. And as election day…
Social media has become more important to political candidates.
AAP
Google “bombs”, Twitter “spam bots” and astroturfing have become tools of the trade during the US election campaign, and are likely to feature in the run-up to next year’s Australian election say experts…
President Obama’s sporting prowess has helped his popularity among the wider American electorate.
EPA/Kevin Dietsch
For many Americans, it seems, politics is the ultimate sport, the true national pastime. Like athletes, political candidates are written about and widely seen as heated rivals – for popularity, power…
Voters in Florida casting their votes through electronic voting, introduced in the wake of 2000’s “hanging chad” controversy.
EPA/Rhona Wise
Elections in the United States are run by state authorites that use a wide variety of voting technologies, often with newsworthy results. Some computerised elections have even awarded the election to the…
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney finally discussed the war in Afghanistan during the third debate on US foreign affairs.
EPA/Michael Reynolds
For a war that has gone on for more than a decade, cost the American taxpayer some US$500 billion, claimed the lives of more than two thousand GIs and inflicted many more thousands of wounded, the conflict…
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama face off in the third and final debate on foreign policy.
EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo
In the heavyweight clash of the presidential candidates, round three went to President Barack Obama on points – not by knockout. This means the incumbent won two out of the three match-ups. Interestingly…
Does body language matter? Research says it does.
EPA/Jim Lo Scalzo
The US presidential debates are now over and the experts will run rampant again on various aspects of the debate including deciphering the body language of each candidate. The task becomes being able to…
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney share the goal of US “energy independence”.
Neil Kremer/Flickr
Energy policy featured only briefly in the first debate between President Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney. As became evident in the second debate, Romney’s case for restoring strong economic growth…
Republicans have dragged the US energy policy debate, on issues like foreign oil independence, far to the right.
micheleoneill/Flickr
That Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is locked into such an unalloyed pro-oil stance is not so surprising, given the alignment of the core Republican states with oil producers’ interests. However…
Barack Obama, pictured with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been accused of throwing Israel “under the bus”.
EPA/Aaron Showalter
At the same dinner party that Mitt Romney infamously told his $50,000-a-plate supporters that 47% of the American public are slackers, he also delved into foreign policy. Romney told his audience that…
Obama gets his game on for the second presidential debate.
AAP
Welcome to part seven of our Race to the White House podcast series. Each week we’ll be talking to Australia’s top US experts on the ins and outs of the 2012 US presidential campaign. This week, we discuss…
Hands up who wants to go to a private school? Barack Obama visits an elementary school in Silver Springs, Maryland.
EPA/Chip Somodevilla
Most Americans agree that public education in their country is broken. The infrastructure of thousands of schools is decaying, scores on standardised tests are stagnant, and roughly 1.2 million students…