WITH the Democratic Party formally nominating President Barack Obama as its candidate on Thursday, the election has become what the media is calling a ‘coin flip race’. Even though the president still enjoys a slight edge over Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee is making rapid gains and hitting President Obama hard where he is vulnerable — the economy: 8.2 per cent unemployment, three million jobless; and unsatisfactory healthcare. Mr Romney — with a personal fortune of $250m — claims he can fix the economy, though the Obama camp derides him because of his corporate background, saying it is big business that would gain at the expense of the American people. They have a point, for Mr Romney’s election pledge includes a brazen tilt in favour of the profit-maximising industrial conglomerates — tax relief for the rich and cuts in government spending.

President Obama inherited his predecessor’s mess, with a $3tr deficit. The economy was in recession because of the bank crash, and it goes to President Obama’s credit that he avoided a second recession by reviving the auto industry. The issue today is the American middle class, which feels squeezed and finds it difficult to maintain its lifestyle. Mr Romney’s cuts, the Democrats allege, could affect even education and research, thus further hitting the middle class. Very embarrassing for Mr Romney, his own policies on healthcare, gun control and abortion as Massachusetts governor bear a striking resemblance to the Obama policies he is criticising. In foreign affairs President Obama claims successes: he has ended the Iraq war, the Afghan pullout is set for 2014, Al Qaeda has been crippled and Osama bin Laden taken care of. Mr Romney, he says, is “new to foreign policy”, though the Republicans claim that America’s image in the Muslim world is worse than what it was under the Bush administration. Basically it is domestic issues rather than foreign policy that would determine the outcome of the presidential race. The Muslim world will judge the man in the White House by his policies towards the Palestinian issue and watch whether his anti-terror policies acquire an anti-Islamist hue.