Why Obama will win in a landslide

(HUFFINGTON POST)

By Gary Hart

The media-friendly catch-phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” appeals to those who like their politics, and their government, simple. By and large people do vote their pocketbooks. But those same people have sons and daughters in the military, work for companies with international operations, and are threatened, at least to some degree, by terrorists in dark alleys of foreign capitals. Let’s call this globalization. Our economy, and the jobs it does or doesn’t produce, now exists in an international set of complex networks.

So the economy the “stupid” candidate talks about, whether specifically or more likely vaguely, cannot be separated from this world. This means that our leaders, especially the president and vice-president, better know something about the world in which we operate and to whose financial, banking, communications, security, environmental and a host of other systems we are connected.

All of which suggests that the traditional three categories of policy — economic, foreign and defense — are interconnected and international. Thus, knowing a good deal about the 21st century world, having traveled it and experienced it, is more crucial today for a president than ever before in our nation’s history.