No, Obama is not a shoe-in

Actually, I am even more optimistic though still cautious. It seems that Wayne Rooney has endorsed Obama. That ought to mean that Romney will walk it except for the sad truth that very few Americans will know who this person is. I note that my own team. QPR is playing at home this week-end. Could there be any mileage out of constructing a questionnaire and asking the players to tell me what they think about the Presidential election as well as whom they might endorse?

The Economist has endorsed Obama but that was to be expected. Really, have they ever endorsed a Republican?

What interested me is the fact that Der Spiegel has woken up to the fact that there might well be a President Romney as of the third week of January. They were not over-impressed by Obama's performance in the debates, especially the first one and have made the odd regretful noise about all that hope changing into something very different, but, somehow it obviously did not occur to them that it might lead to Romney winning.

Germans have long since made up their minds about Mitt Romney. Only 5 percent would give him their vote if they had one, they say.

The result of the most recent poll by Forsa is far from surprising. When America votes, the German heart traditionally beats for the Democratic candidate. To many, the Republicans are suspect: cocky, Christian-conservative, narrow-minded and often hawkish -- at least according to the widespread cliché. Some 92 percent of Germans, the poll found, would vote to return incumbent Barack Obama to the White House.

They are worried about Romney's foreign policy ideas, which, they say are opaque. Apparently, they are not worried about Obama's proven foreign policy failures.