The answer must be yes, but it will be difficult. A faltering economy is the most likely hurdle to deny a US president a second term in normal times. But these are not normal times. When Obama came to office promising change, he faced the biggest economic problems in all America’s history. The scale of the deficits and debts made them almost insoluble. Republican opportunism mixed with Tea Party fundamentalism destroyed the political consensus, essential in time of national emergency. Without it bad things get worse.
Given all that, Obama has done well to stop America sliding into a depression. He has managed anaemic growth and some parts of the industrial and technology base of the economy are doing well. The problem for a mighty industrial power which once made everything it used, but now buys in from China, is that Chinese workers are happy but many US workers without jobs are not. As GB has found, shrinking industry creates real problems of long term unemployment, social exclusion and neighbourhood decay. In America in 2008, great multitudes of voters who had lost all but hope, invested that hope in a vote for Barack Obama. Too many have seen no dividend.
Probably nobody could have done better for them in a single term with a raging financial crisis. What the President has to do now is to convince them he can and will deliver if he is given the mandate to continue. He must inspire them to believe that they are not forgotten and that he will not forget them. He will also need some good economic news as polling day approaches. Either that or a blunder by the Romney campaign. The latter appears, at the moment, more likely.
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