美国大选

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美国大选

economist 2012-10-10 economist 598次

The choice
选择

All elections get called the most important for decades. This one really is: two very different paths for the future are on offer
每届大选都会被称为几十年来最重要的大选，而这次确实如此：美国面前有两条截然不同的通往未来之路

“HOW’S that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?” Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential candidate at the last election, memorably asked in 2010, mocking Barack Obama’s airy campaign slogans of two years before. On November 6th many voters will be asking themselves more or less the same question, when they decide whether or not to award Mr Obama a second term. The slogans have become no weightier over the past four years—Mr Obama now wants to go “Forward”; his rival, Mitt Romney, prefers to “Believe in America”—but the stakes are, if anything, higher. The gulf that separates the policies of the two candidates and their parties seems wider than in any election in living memory.

上届大选的共和党副总统候选人莎拉·佩林（Sarah Palin）在2010年提出过这么一个问题：“现在你们觉得奥巴马所谓的那些希望啊，改变啊到底怎么样？”她是在嘲讽巴拉克·奥巴马（Barrack Obama）2008年那些华而不实的竞选口号。今年11月6日，很多选民将要决定是否让奥巴马连任，届时他们应该会扪心自问差不多的问题。经历了四年，总统竞选口号却没有变得更具有实质感，奥巴马这次想要“前进”，而他的对手米特·罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）则偏好“相信美国”。尽管口号没什么长进，这次大选确实比上一次更加重要。两名候选人之间，以及他们的政党之间现在存在一条不可跨越的鸿沟。而且这道鸿沟之宽达到了近代历届大选之最。

Mr Romney wants a much smaller government (except when it comes to throwing America’s weight around overseas, where he wants to boost defence spending from 3.4% of GDP to a target of 4%). To that end, he proposes to lower taxes, dramatically cut spending on everything other than the armed forces, adopt a balanced-budget amendment, repeal Mr Obama’s health-care reforms and overhaul big “entitlement” programmes such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security—the government schemes for, respectively, health-care for the elderly and the poor, and pensions. Even food stamps, the last refuge of America’s poorest, would be on the chopping block. Mr Obama, who recently said that “the country doesn’t need radical changes,” opposes all those things. He, too, promises to reduce the deficit—but without reaching for a cleaver. By keeping tax rates stable for most and raising them for the rich, he says he can reduce the public debt while spending more on infrastructure and education, among other things.

罗姆尼希望大幅度缩减政府规模（除了让美国在海外继续耀武扬威这一块，他想将国防开支占国民生产总值的比例从现在的3.4％增加到目标4％）。为了达到缩减政府的目标，他提出降低税收，大幅度缩减除军队以外的所有政府开支，通过预算平衡的修宪，推翻奥巴马的健保改革，彻底重组如医疗保险（老人健保）、医疗补助（穷人健保）和社会保障（养老金）等大型“应得权益”福利。他甚至连美国穷人最终的庇护项目－食品券都想要削减。奥巴马最近则提出“美国不需要激进的改变”，而反对罗姆尼的所有以上提议。奥巴马也承诺要减少赤字，但并不是通过大幅度削减开支来达成。他声称保持大部分人税率稳定，同时向富人增税就能够降低政府债务，同时他也提议要在基础建设和教育等项目上加大开支。

In addition to this basic dispute about the size of the state, the pair disagree on just about everything else. There are the typical fissures on “values”: Mr Romney wants to ban gay marriage and, in almost all cases, abortion, although neither step is in the president’s power. Mr Obama is resolutely pro-choice and, after much dithering, now says he supports gay marriage. Immigration is another fault-line. Mr Obama has issued a reprieve for certain illegal immigrants living in fear of deportation, and says he would like to do more, if only Congress would go along. Mr Romney wants to make life so miserable for all those in the country without permission that they will “self-deport”, although he also pledges to expand legal immigration.

除了对政府规模的这一本质争议，两名候选人基本在所有问题上意见都相左。这包括典型的“价值观”分歧：罗姆尼希望禁止同性恋婚姻，并在几乎任何情况下都反对堕胎，虽然这两点的决定权都不在总统职权范围内。而奥巴马则坚决支持女性有权选择人流，而且在多年举棋不定之后，最终站出来宣布其支持同性恋婚姻。移民是另一个存在巨大分歧的议题。奥巴马发布了一项对某些非法移民暂时不进行刑事追究的法令，让这些人不用每天生活在对遣送的恐惧中。他也表示如果不是因为国会不合作，他本想要进行更大的改革。罗姆尼则希望让那些非法逗留在美国国内的人生活极度困难，这样他们最终将会“自发遣送”，不过他也誓言会扩展合法移民。

Mr Romney is also a foreign-policy hawk. He complains that Mr Obama spends too much time apologising for his country. He promises to cow countries that have crossed America, including China, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, and to bolster its allies, chief among them Israel. Mr Obama dismisses his rival as inexperienced in such matters, and his talk as “blustering and blundering”. Recent gaffes by the Republican candidate have tended to reinforce the president’s argument.

罗姆尼也是一位外交鹰派。他抱怨说奥巴马一味地为美国道歉。他承诺要给一切胆敢冒犯美国的国家，包括中国、伊朗、俄罗斯和委内瑞拉好看，同时也要大力扶助美国的盟国，尤其是以色列。奥巴马则表示他的对手在外交事务上完全是个愣头青，认为罗姆尼的讲话完全是“大放厥词、大摆乌龙”的典型。这位共和党候选人最近出的一些洋相让人觉得总统所言非虚。

Yet another stark difference concerns global warming. Mr Obama tried to get Congress to curb greenhouse-gas emissions through a cap-and-trade scheme. When that failed, his administration continued to pursue regulation to the same end under the Clean Air Act. Mr Romney wants to amend the act to make that impossible, and says the causes and effects of global warming are too uncertain to justify expensive remedies.

另外一个明显的分歧在于全球暖化问题。奥巴马试图让国会通过利用排污交易来控制温室气体排放的法案。在失败之后，奥巴马政府又继续试图利用清洁空气法案来设立减少温室气体排放的管制法规。罗姆尼希望修改清洁空气法案，使得类似这样的行动无法实现，同时声称温室效应的原因和影响现在还太不确定，因此采取昂贵的解决措施并不合理。

It’s still the economy
说到底，还是经济

There is plenty for voters to mull on, in other words. They seem to have been finding the decision wrenching. Most polls have shown the two candidates within a whisker of one another for months, although Mr Obama has recently showed signs of pulling away. Americans do not often turf out sitting presidents: over the past 70 years, only three—Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush senior—have been shown the door after one term.

换句话说，选民有的好思考了。现在看来，选民似乎觉得要在两者中选一是个痛苦的决定。几个月来大多数民意调查都显示两名候选人的支持率只有一线之差，不过奥巴马现在显现出开始甩开对手的迹象。美国大选很少发生总统寻求连任失败的情况：在过去70年里，只有三位总统—杰拉尔德·福特（Gerald Ford），吉米·卡特（Jimmy Carter）和老布什（George Bush senior）—在一任之后就得拍屁股走人。

Conversely, a weak economy is normally thought to be the biggest threat to an incumbent, and it has been over 70 years since unemployment was so high at the time of an election. Mr Obama himself said in 2009 that if he failed to sort out the economic mess he had inherited, his presidency would be a one-term proposition.

相反来说，疲软的经济通常被看作是寻求连任总统最大的软肋。而上一次总统大选失业率像今天这么高已是70多年前的事了。奥巴马本人也曾在2009年说过如果他无法处理好继承下来的经济烂摊子，他将只能在总统宝座上呆一届。

That has given Mr Romney hope, and a strategy. He has relentlessly criticised Mr Obama for his poor stewardship of the economy. The president’s stimulus, he says, has yielded lots of debt but no growth; median incomes are down (by 4.6% since mid-2009); his health-care reforms are burdening small businesses; environmental regulations are strangling America’s energy output. Mr Romney has seized on a remark the president made, “You didn’t build that!”—making the point that even the most successful of entrepreneurs relied in some measure on government services to build their businesses—to suggest that Mr Obama is hostile to entrepreneurship itself. The president may have inherited a grim outlook in 2008, the argument runs, but his policies have made it worse.

这就给罗姆尼带来了一丝希望，同时也为他提供了一种战略。他一直以来不遗余力地批评奥巴马对经济的掌舵糟糕之极。他声称总统的刺激措施让国家背上大笔债务，却没有带来经济增长；美国人中位收入有所下跌（和2009年中相比下降了4.6％）；奥巴马健保改革对小型企业是个负担；环境管制在扼杀美国的能源生产。罗姆尼抓住奥巴马说的一句话“那并不是你建的！”（奥巴马的本意是指即使最成功的创业人士也需要依赖一定程度上的政府服务来建立自己的企业）大做文章，称奥巴马对创业有敌对情绪。总而言之，罗姆尼阵营认为奥巴马在2008年继承的经济前景严峻，但他的政策把问题变得更糟。

This attack resonates. Big majorities of Americans tell pollsters that the country is heading in the wrong direction. One of the few realms of policy on which voters have tended to rate Mr Romney more highly than Mr Obama is the economy, though recently that has shifted slightly. Crucially for Mr Romney, that economic discontent is shared by Americans of all stripes: young and old, rich and poor, male and female, white and minority.

这种指责在群众中引起很大共鸣。大多数接受民调的美国人认为国家正在向错误的方向前进。经济是少数几个民众认为罗姆尼会比奥巴马更有能力的政策领域之一，虽然最近这种看法已经开始逐渐改变。对于罗姆尼来说很关键的一点在于：所有的美国人，不管年轻还是年老，男性还是女性，白人还是少数民族，都对经济感到不满。

Mr Obama has tried to counter this by highlighting policies he has championed to help each of those slices of the population. Women, he says, are better off thanks to an act he signed making it easier for them to sue for equal pay, and thanks to clauses in his health-care reforms obliging insurers to offer at no extra cost preventive measures such as breast-cancer screenings and, controversially, birth control. Hispanics are reminded of the president’s reprieve for “dreamers”—illegal immigrants brought to America as children. To young people Mr Obama emphasises his expansion of grants and low-interest loans for students. To the old he harps on about his commitment to preserving Medicare in its present form, rather than adopting the sort of voucher scheme Mr Romney proposes. To blue-collar workers, he is the saviour of the car industry. To one and all he bangs on about ordering the raid in which Osama bin Laden was killed.

奥巴马对抗罗姆尼这一论调的方法是尝试点出一些他提倡的，且对某些特定群体有所帮助的政策。他指出自己签订的一项法案让女性更容易以平等薪资为由诉诸公堂，他的健保改革也要求保险商在不收取额外保费的情况下覆盖诸如乳腺癌检查之类的预防措施和避孕措施（覆盖避孕引发了多方争议），这些政策都使女性选民得益。奥巴马提醒拉丁裔选民自己赦免了“追逐美国梦群体”，即那些从小就在美国长大的非法移民。他也对年轻选民强调自己拓宽了学生补助金和低息助学贷款的覆盖范围。在老年选民面前他反复指出自己致力于将现在的医疗保险形式保存下来，而不是像罗姆尼提议的那样采取医疗券系统。面对蓝领工人选民时，他又变成了汽车工业的救世主。最后，在所有选民面前他都再三强调是他下令的突袭击毙了奥萨玛·本·拉登（Osama bin Laden）。

But the president’s main strategy has been to demonise his opponent. Mr Obama and his backers have painted Mr Romney, a former boss of Bain Capital, as a corporate parasite who sucked big profits out of businesses even as workers were sacked and balance-sheets buckled. They have questioned his failure to release more than two years of tax returns. They suggest that Mr Romney as president would do much more for the rich and undeserving than for the middle-class and struggling.

但总统大人的主要战略似乎还是将其对手妖魔化。奥巴马和其支持者把贝恩资本的前老板罗姆尼描述为一只商界寄生虫，从收购的公司内吸取高额利润，同时把大批员工解雇，且让公司背上巨债。他们也对罗姆尼不愿意公开超过两年的税收文件大肆质疑。他们认为罗姆尼当上总统会对富人大为有利，而中产阶级和贫困人士则会遭遇冷落。

This, too, is an attack which resonates with voters. Mr Romney, with a personal fortune of some $250m (and at least one confidant says much more), is the wealthiest presidential candidate in generations. He is prone to glib remarks that accentuate the gulf between him and most Americans: how he knows several owners of car-racing teams, or how his wife drives “a couple of Cadillacs”. He is often wooden and unconvincing on the campaign trail, with an unfortunate habit of reciting the lyrics of patriotic songs in a sombre monotone. In polls most respondents assume that Mr Obama has a better grasp of the sort of problems they face. A majority usually express an unfavourable opinion of Mr Romney—an unprecedented deficit of goodwill for a challenger this close to election day.

选民同样对这种攻击有很大共鸣。罗姆尼的个人资产约2.5亿美元（至少有一位知情人士透露他的实际身家要高得多），他是几十年来最富有的总统候选人。而且他还时不时会口无遮拦地冒出一两句失言，显现出他和大多数美国人之间的鸿沟：如他认识几位赛车队老板啦，或是他的妻子有“几辆凯迪拉克”啦。在竞选过程中他在很多场合下显得木呐，缺乏说服力，他还有一个非常糟糕的习惯，会用一种严肃沉闷的语调复述爱国歌曲的歌词。民调显示大多数选民认为两人中奥巴马对当前问题有更好的掌握。而且大多民调显示超过半数受访者排斥罗姆尼，在大选日这么逼近的时刻对连任总统发出挑战的候选人口碑如此差可谓是史无前例的。

The election, in other words, is a race between limping candidates. Both men have many admirable qualities, to be sure. Mr Obama still gives a mean speech, and his story remains inspirational. But his knack for conjuring a vision of a better America rings a little hollow after four years of lacklustre growth and ever shriller partisan rhetoric. His goals this time round, such as halving the rate of inflation of university tuition fees and paving the way for the creation of 600,000 new jobs in the natural-gas industry, seem relatively inconsequential. Perhaps that is because so many of his original promises (to halve the deficit, to close the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, to start to halt the rise of the oceans) have fallen by the wayside.

换句话说，这次大选是一场矮子里面拔将军的竞选。当然，两位候选人都有令人尊敬的地方。奥巴马的演讲依然犀利如旧，而他的个人奋斗史仍然鼓舞人心。但在经历了四年的疲软经济和日益尖刻的党派之争后，他擅长的那一套－勾画出一个更美好美国的前景－在选民眼里不免有点空洞。他这次大选定下的一些当选目标，如将大学学费上升速度下降一半，为在天然气行业创造60万个岗位铺平道路等等相对都显得有些微不足道。这有可能是因为他上次大选许下的很多承诺（将赤字减少一半、关闭关塔那摩湾监狱、开始着手阻止海平面进一步升高）最终都没有能兑现。

Mr Romney, meanwhile, is an extremely capable businessman. As well as creating a fabulously successful private-equity company, he turned around the failing Salt Lake City winter Olympics of 2002. During his time as governor of Massachusetts he ran the state in a pragmatic manner, co-operating with the Democratic legislature to close a big budget shortfall, in part by raising revenue, and to pass the health-care reforms on which Mr Obama’s were based.

另一方面，罗姆尼则是个极为有能力的商人。除了曾建立一间极成功的私募股权公司外，2002年他也出马拯救了面临四分五裂危机的盐湖城冬奥会。他在马塞诸塞州当州长期间行事非常务实，和民主党控制的州议会合作填补了巨大的预算赤字（其中一部份减赤是通过加税达成的）。他也在该州通过了健保改革，后来奥巴马实施的健改实际上是以罗姆尼的改革为蓝图的。

But to win the Republican primaries Mr Romney tacked far to the right, forswearing absolutely all revenue-raising measures, even in pursuit of much bigger spending cuts, embracing socially conservative views on abortion, gay marriage and the like, promising to crack down on illegal immigration and disavowing his own health reforms. He boasted of being a “severely conservative” governor, abruptly conceived a plan to slash income taxes by 20% across the board and derided “the 47%” of Americans who were bound to support Mr Obama because they pay no income tax.

但为了拿下共和党初选，罗姆尼的立场极度向右倾斜。他坚决宣誓不会采取任何加税措施，就算开支削减的金额要大得多也不让步，在堕胎、同性恋婚姻这些问题上拥护社会保守观点，承诺严打非法移民，对自己制订的医改矢口否认。他自诩为一个“极度保守”的州长，突然之间想出一个减少所有税收20%的计划，并对“那47%”注定会投票给奥巴马的美国人嗤之以鼻，因为他们不交所得税。

Not only has this put off many swing voters, it has also cemented the impression that Mr Romney is a slippery flip-flopper. He compounded matters by choosing as his running-mate Paul Ryan, a congressman known for his determination to curb the unsustainable expansion in the cost of Medicare, before promptly declaring that he would rescind the cuts to Medicare that Mr Ryan had envisaged. Where Mr Romney’s positions are not confusing or inconsistent, they are often woolly.

这些言论不但让很多举棋不定的选民受不了，同时也加深了人们认为罗姆尼是个滑不溜手的骑墙派这一印象。众议员保罗·莱恩（Paul Ryan）以决心控制医疗保险无以为继的扩张而闻名。罗姆尼先选择莱恩为竞选搭挡，又立刻宣布他会放弃莱恩所设想的医疗保险经费削减，这更让人们觉得他反复无常。罗姆尼的很多立场都令人困惑且前后不一，而剩下的一些立场又过于模糊不清。

The usual torrent of abusive ads helps stoke public misgivings about the candidates. More money will be spent on this election than on any previous one—and that is not counting the flood of “independent expenditures” not formally linked to either party or candidate, but nonetheless intended to influence the race. Almost all this advertising, needless to say, is negative.

大选中常见的谩骂广告也增加了公众对于两位候选人的不安。这次大选所耗费的资金将会超过历史上任何一届，而且这还不算上那些表面上和两党及两位候选人都没有关系，但还是试图影响竞选的大量所谓“独立开支”。当然，几乎所有这些广告都是意图抹黑对手的负面广告。

Where previously there was hope and change, in short, there is now fear and loathing. The distortion and name-calling will intensify over the next month. Meanwhile, only the three debates hold out any prospect of changing the course of the race. The victor will have much to overcome—including the depressing process of his selection.

简而言之，之前的大选有希望和改变，而现在则充满了恐惧和厌憎。接下来的一个月里各种扭曲事实和侮辱谩骂会变得更强。同时，却只有三次总统辩论有希望改变大选的基调。不管谁胜谁负，当选者都需要克服大量困难，其中就包括要克服他令人沮丧的当选过程。