Does it matter to us?

The debates are over, there is wall to wall advertising and both candidates are rushing around trying to drum up last minute voters. The pundits give 2% lead to one candidate and then to the other with the caveat that this is within the margin of error. After the party conventions Obama was in the lead, mostly because of the old Clinton magic and Clint Eastwood holding a muddled conversation with an empty chair. The first debate was a disaster for Obama but he came back stronger in the second and the third debates. Romney clutching " binders full of women " became a point of discussion and Obama's sarcastic " horses and bayonets " riposte to Romney's charge of a weaker navy has become the basis of endless jokes. However, Americans are much less concerned about foreign policy than they are about domestic policies, especially the economy. If the experts are to be believed the result on 6 November hinges on 9 swing states. Apparently Obama is already assured of 237 electoral college votes and needs another 33 to reach the magic figure of 270 while Romney has 191 and needs another 79. Obama is ahead by 2% in Ohio which gives him 18 votes and by 3% in Wisconsin which gives him another 10. Romney is ahead by 6% in North Carolina which gives him 15 votes, by 2% in Florida getting 29 votes, in Colorado it is Romney 47.8% to Obama's 47.6% giving 9 votes to Romney and in Virginia there is a dead heat at 48% giving Romney 13 votes. Obama has the lead in a number of small states such as Iowa with 6 votes, Nevada with 6 votes and New Hampshire with 4 votes. According to these projections Obama gets 44 votes in the swing states while Romney gets 66 and Obama wins by 281 to 257 electoral college votes. Thus Obama can scrape through if he loses Wisconsin, which is the home state of the Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, Paul Ryan, but if he were to lose Ohio he is dead. With this system Romney could win by huge margins in the southern states and thus have a larger total of popular votes but still lose the election, much as Al Gore lost to George Bush in 2000. Does the result matter to India? We already know what Obama is about. He is good at speeches but has done little to improve relations with India. While he is conciliatory towards China he has increased visa fees, hurting our main export in IT services. Romney says that he will brand China a currency manipulator on the very first day which will surely precipitate a trade war with China. That may help us and, if he is tougher on terrorists, we would gain. Thus we have nothing to gain from Obama and nothing to lose from Romney. We can sit back and enjoy the fun.