Elections

Arianna Huffington plans to vote Obama, might switch if Romney advocates Afghanistan pullout

Vince Coglianese Editorial Director
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TAMPA, Fla. — Arianna Huffington currently plans to vote for President Barack Obama in November. Huffington told The Daily Caller, however, that she has been disappointed by Obama’s first term and would consider voting for Mitt Romney if the Republican candidate advocates an end to U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.

“My vote does not depend on a particular party, like, I’m not reflexively voting a particular party, but I will vote for Obama,” Huffington told TheDC during a sit-down interview following an event about American entrepreneurs and job creators she hosted in Tampa on Wednesday.

Huffington reflected on her disappointment with Obama for campaigning on “bold ideas”, but instead governing as a “timid” president. And despite pledging her support to the president, Huffington said she wasn’t sure he would change for the better in a second term.

“I don’t know. I think, as I said on The Huffington Post, it’s Obama versus Obama as well as Obama versus Romney,” she said. “We don’t know whether the campaigning Obama of bold ideas or the governing Obama, who’s been much more timid, is going to be the second term Obama if he wins.”

Huffington told TheDC that Romney “has not really put forward a convincing economic plan and of course we have the statements around women’s health which are disconcerting.”

When asked if it was a better bet for the country to maintain the status quo with Obama as president, Huffington responded by saying Romney has had a chance to take advantage of Obama’s weaknesses: stalled job creation and maintaining the war in Afghanistan.

“I think Mitt Romney had a great opportunity to make the case against the last four years if he had focused on job creation and on getting us out of Afghanistan,” Huffington admitted. “But he has ignored Afghanistan. So basically, his position is identical to Obama’s.”

But, Huffington offered, if Romney changed his position on Afghanistan, he might actually earn her vote.

“If, for example, he [Romney] had come out in favor of pulling the troops out of Afghanistan, I would consider voting for him because I think it’s a complete and utter disaster that’s costing us precious lives and two billion dollars a week for no justification — an immoral, unnecessary war — but he hasn’t, so he has not really taken bold positions.”

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