米大統領選 オバマ氏助ける共和党の混戦

The Yomiuri Shimbun (Mar. 9, 2012)
Close Republican race helps Obama's reelection chances
米大統領選　オバマ氏助ける共和党の混戦（3月8日付・読売社説）

The campaign to select the Republican Party's nominee to run in the U.S. presidential race in autumn has become a prolonged contest. This development appears to work in favor of President Barack Obama of the Democratic Party, who is aiming at reelection.
　秋の米大統領選に向けて、共和党の候補者指名争いが長期戦の様相を見せている。再選を目指す民主党のオバマ大統領には有利に働こう。

This week's Super Tuesday was the busiest day of the intraparty contest, with primaries and caucuses held in 10 states, including Ohio. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a moderate Republican, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a conservative, had a very tight race, so the struggle to choose the presidential nominee did not reach a conclusion.
　オハイオなど１０州の予備選・党員集会が集中した６日のスーパーチューズデーで、共和党穏健派のロムニー前マサチューセッツ州知事と、保守派サントラム元上院議員が接戦を演じ、本命争いの決着は持ち越された。

The contest has become such a close fight this year mainly because the Republicans changed the formula for allocating convention delegates among contestants in accordance with the results of each state's primaries and caucuses.
　候補者選びが混戦となった要因は、共和党が今年、予備選・党員集会の結果に基づく州代議員の配分方式を変更したことにある。

Under the conventional formula, the candidate who won a primary or caucus in a state was entitled to all of that state's delegates, so that clear differences would emerge among the contenders' numerical results.
　従来は、予備選・党員集会で勝利した候補がその州の代議員すべてを獲得する「総取り」方式で、差がつきやすかった。

This year, until the end of March in principle, the party is using a formula that awards delegates to candidates in proportion to the number of votes they receive.
　今年は、３月までは原則として得票率に応じた「比例配分」方式を採用する。

Under this formula, the differences among candidates' delegate counts tend to be smaller than under the former method, making it less easy for any one candidate to win a majority of the delegates needed to win the nomination at the party's national convention. Thus, the contest drags on.
差が開きにくく、指名に必要な過半数にはなかなか達しないため、競り合いが続く。

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History not repeating itself

In the presidential election four years ago, Democratic candidates Obama and Hillary Clinton, both senators at the time, fought a fiercely contested race to become their party's presidential nominee, the momentum from which apparently helped Obama win the presidential race.
　４年前の大統領選では、民主党のオバマ、クリントン両氏が白熱の指名争いを展開して勢いづき、そのまま本選で勝利した。

The Republicans probably intended to attract media attention to an intense nomination race that would give their party a similar surge in popularity.
　共和党も、手に汗握る指名争いでニュースを独占し、上げ潮に乗せたい思惑があろう。

Yet so far the results have been the opposite of what the party hoped for.
　だが、共和党の狙いは今のところ裏目に出ている。

The race has prolonged as just what the party calculated it would. But the contest seems to have descended into mudslinging, with candidates pointing out the shortcomings and weak points of their rivals, rather than waging a battle of words to compete over their respective policies. There have also been television ads in which rivals blast one another so often as to disgust voters.
　長期戦になったのは計算通りだが、政策の優劣を競う論戦ではなく、相手候補の欠点、弱点をあげつらう中傷合戦が目立つ。互いを誹謗(ひぼう)するテレビＣＭも有権者がうんざりするほど流されている。

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Many cooks stirring the pot

Financially supporting these negative campaigns are political action committees called super PACs, which can raise unlimited amounts of money for political advertising, and whose financing actions were approved by a Supreme Court ruling in 2010.
　そうした個人攻撃キャンペーンを資金面で支えるのは、集める政治資金額に制限がないスーパーＰＡＣ（特別政治活動委員会）と呼ばれる政治団体だ。２年前の連邦最高裁判決で認められた。

Conservative grassroots political activists such as those in the tea party movement, who harshly criticize moderates within the Republican Party, are quite energetic. This deepens the intraparty conflict further.
　党内穏健派を激しく批判するティーパーティー（茶会）運動など保守派の草の根活動も盛んで、党内対立は深まるばかりだ。

As things stand now, the Republicans can hardly expect to orchestrate the type of outcome the Democrats achieved when Obama and Clinton joined hands and displayed their solidarity following the end of the presidential nomination race.
　このままでは共和党は、指名争い終了後にオバマ、クリントン両氏が手を組んで一致団結ぶりを誇示した民主党のような演出は、とてもできそうにない。

This is quite a favorable development for the Obama camp. Improvement in the jobless rate will also be a favorable wind for Obama.
　オバマ陣営には、具合がいい展開だ。失業率が改善しているのも再選への追い風となろう。

Yet the U.S. economy still remains dismal. Any president, whoever it may be, will have to tackle the thorny issues of buoying up the economy and slashing the fiscal deficit.
　だが、米国経済は依然、厳しい。だれが大統領になっても、景気浮揚と財政赤字削減の難題に取り組まなくてはならない。

In the presidential race, tax system reform is an important point of contention. Regarding the corporate tax rate, Obama and leading Republican candidates agree on the need to reduce it. In the United States, too, the issue of how to reinforce the international competitiveness of its business corporations is an issue of the highest priority.
　大統領選で税制改革は重要な争点だ。法人税率を巡っては、オバマ氏も共和党の有力候補も「引き下げ」で共通する。米国でも国際競争力の強化が最優先課題だ。

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, March 8, 2012)
（2012年3月8日01時16分 読売新聞）