Election 2012: Going Global

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson (one of my favorites) makes an astute observation that this year's election campaign may depend as much on overseas events as on domestic concerns about the economy:

It may not be the economy, stupid.

Then again, James Carville’s famous maxim about the 1992 presidential campaign might well be valid in 2012. But it’s quite possible that on Election Day, voters’ most urgent concerns — economic or not — will be driven by overseas events that neither President Obama nor his Republican opponent can predict or control.

Robinson notes Afghanistan, Korea, Syria, Iran, and events in Europe as potential pitfalls for both the President and Governor Romney. While overseas events have had major impact on presidential campaigns (1940, 1948, 1968, 1980, and 2004 come to mind with varying degrees of impact), 2012 presents so many different international issues that trying to predict the election right now is a fool's errand.