To Some Conservatives A Romney Victory Is Very Worrying-- And For Plenty Of Reasons

James Stafford runs a blog called OilPrice.com and the other day he interviewed conservative economic commentator Mike “Mish” Shedlock, who writes the blog Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis. Stafford, of course, is just trying to figure out where oil prices are headed and he asked Shedlock to give him an idea of what might happen after the November election, Shedlock was pessimistic.

Oilprice.com: In regards to presidential elections, how do you think energy will fare under Obama and under Romney? Which sectors will benefit, and which will suffer?

Mish: Mitt Romney has declared that if he’s elected he is going to label China a currency manipulator and increase tariffs on China across the board. That's something that I believe he might be able to do by mandate. If he's elected and he does follow through, I think the result will be a global trade war the likes of which we have not seen since the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act compounded problems during the Great Depression. Simply put, I think that global trade will collapse if Romney wins and he follows through on his campaign promises.

Unfortunately, campaign rhetoric now is heating up to the point where President Obama and Mitt Romney are trying to outdo each other on who's going to do more to China. Thus, we may very well see a global trade war regardless of who wins.

As an aside, Mitt Romney is pledging to increase military spending. Given Romney’s statements on Iran, it's more likely he would start a war with Iran than Obama. Note that the U.S. military is one of the biggest users of petroleum worldwide and oil price shocks could be devastating.

None of this is any good for the world economy at all. I believe that Romney will do what he says. I believe he's more likely to start wars than Obama, but that doesn't make Obama any good. This is the worst slate of candidates in U.S. history running for president, and I'm writing in Ron Paul.

I think that's what all Ron Paul backers should do. And did you know that Ron Paul asked Romney for a chance to speak at the Republican Convention in Tampa and Romney turned him down flat-- twice! That isn't going to help Romney with Jewsih Ron Paul supporters-- and neither is his trip to Israel. Even if he doesn't do something foolish like eat a ham and cheese sandwich at the Wailing Wall, he isn't picking up any steam among Jewish voters in the U.S., despite the GOP strategy of offending Muslims at every opportunity.

According to Chemi Shalev writing in Israel's Haaretz:

 
In any case, the poll shows that until now, the Republican campaign against Obama's attitude toward Israel has achieved only modest results and Romney has his work cut out for him if he is seeking to change the equation in Israel. With 68% of the vote and 7% undecided, Obama seems to be on track to coming close to his 2008 levels of support among Jewish voters, which was estimated to be about 75%.

If we take away the undecided voters in the Gallup survey, Jewish voters break 73/27 for Obama.

A recent report by the non-partisan Solomon Project found retroactively that Obama received 74% of the Jewish vote in 2008.
 
Last month, Gallup found that Obama led Romney 64%/29%. But if we compare it to Gallup's data from June 2011, this poll shows a significant increase in Jewish support for the President. Further, if we compare this to the Gallup data from June 2008, Obama is doing better this year over Romney than he did against John McCain in 2008.
 
One thing is clear from this trend in the polling data: the more American Jews get to know Mitt Romney, the less they like him and the more they support Obama.