An Urban's Rural View

Journalists covering past presidential campaigns took a lot of heat for focusing on the "horse race" (who will win?) instead of on the issues (does it make any difference who will win?) This year I've detected less horse-race coverage but that isn't because the campaign correspondents have gotten religion. They're more hesitant to call this year's race, I suspect, because it's harder to call.

Even going into the final days the outcome looks like it could go either way. Romney gained momentum from the debates and at one point the polls showed him supported by the majority of those likely to vote. But there were also polls putting Obama ahead in swing states like Ohio and raising the possibility that Romney might win the popular vote but lose where it counts, in the electoral college.

Then along came Hurricane Sandy, which gave the president a commander-in-chief moment that he put to good use. The effusive praise his emergency management won from the Republican governor of New Jersey underscored this seeming swing in the momentum.

The strong jobs report five days before the election gave the president another boost. The number employed rose much more sharply than expected. Even the slight uptick in the unemployment rate was the result of renewed optimism in the economy. It was the increasing size of the work force that pushed the jobless rate up, as out-of-work Americans regained hope and re-entered the job market.

But that doesn't mean Obama is a shoo-in. There's still plenty of ways he could go down. One possibility is that his on-the-ground operatives prove unable to get enough pro-Obama voters to the polls.

Another is the intriguing one sketched out by my friend Walter Shapiro on Yahoo, under the revealing headline: "Up in smoke: How Gary Johnson and a Colorado marijuana initiative could cost Obama the election." (See http://tiny.cc/…) By associating with the initiative, the theory goes, Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, could attract young voters who might otherwise have pulled the lever for the president.

Does the result matter to agriculture? There are, of course, farmers on both sides of this horse race, sure their guy will be better for the country. But if you look at ag issues narrowly, does it make any difference who wins?

Some Washington observers think we're more likely to see a farm bill passed in the lame-duck session if the president is re-elected and the Senate remains Democratic. Assuming that's true, so what? For dairy farmers, whose support programs have expired, lame-duck passage would make a difference; for most other farmers, there probably isn't that much lost if Congress doesn't get around to voting on the farm bill until next year.

The sleeper issue might be what happens to the estate tax. If we go over the fiscal cliff without Congress agreeing on new tax laws in the lame duck, the estate-tax exemption reverts to $1 million. In these days of lofty land prices that isn't a prospect farmers would welcome. Which presidential candidate is more likely to let us go over the fiscal cliff? There are as many arguments about that as there are about who will win the horse race.

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

(CZ)

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