美国总统大选选战开打

2012年1月3日的共和党艾奥瓦州党团会议正式拉开美国总统大选帷幕。11月16日，美国全国选民将投票选出下一届美国总统。12月17日，选举人团选出总统。2013年1月6日，参众两院宣布获胜者。2013年1月20日，新总统就职典礼。

Game on
大战开始

The campaign looks likely to sharpen America's divisions.
总统竞选似乎深化了美国人的分歧。

AMERICA'S primary elections are not yet formally over, but with the exit of Rick Santorum it is at last plain that Mitt Romney will be the Republicans' nominee. After the bruising primaries, Mr Romney starts from behind. Barack Obama leads in the head-to-head polls. But there are still seven months to election day, and Mr Romney has a fair chance of victory in November. Less than half of America's voters approve of the way Mr Obama is doing his job. Six out of ten think the country is on the "wrong track". The recovery is still weak and 12.7m Americans are unemployed. America added only 120,000 jobs in March, below expectations and fewer than in previous months.
美国初选尚未正式结束，但随着里克·桑托利姆的退出，结果尘埃落定，米特·罗姆尼最终将成为共和党的提名人。在竞争激烈的初选后，罗姆尼后来居上，奥巴马则在两党共同举行的民意调查中领先。但距离选举日还有7个月，罗姆尼仍然有在11月公平竞争，和对手一较高下的机会。美国选民中，只有不到一半的人认可奥巴马总统的工作。他们中10个人就有6个认为美国正处于一条“错误的轨道”上。经济恢复依旧疲弱，1270万美国人失业。3月份美国新增120,000个就业岗位，这一数字低于预期，同时也比前几个月的少。

This fight is going to be nastier than the one in 2008. By instinct Mr Romney is a moderate, but the primaries tugged him sharply right, forcing him to boast that he was "severely conservative" by embracing policies, including deep cuts in social spending, that even the famous flip-flopper will now find it difficult to drop. After the primaries, candidates pivot towards the centre. But Mr Romney knows that to turn out a conservative base that does not love him he must mobilise their hatred of Mr Obama. In the meantime Mr Obama appears to believe that he cannot afford to present himself once more as a healer who will soar above party divisions. He is running a more partisan campaign this time round. An already polarised America therefore faces a deeply polarising election.
本次大选战况将比2008年的大选更加难分难解。罗姆尼本质上是走稳健路线的，但是初选把他推到了极右阵营，迫使他支持一些政策来宣称自己是“极端保守”的，这些政策包括大幅削减社会支出。然而即使是那些名气大的墙头草政客们也发现，削减社会开支难度很大。初选之后，候选人们的重心已经移到了中心。但是罗姆尼知道，要想在不欢迎自己的保守派阵营中取得一席之地，他必须激起这些人对奥巴马总统的敌视。奥巴马总统似乎认为自己不能再以党派分歧调停人的形象出现了。本次竞选，他把更多心思花在自己的阵营上。这样一来，社会极化严重的美国要面临一场同样极化严重的大选。