It’s never too early to start thinking ahead to the potential impact an election can have on the markets, and a look at some important numbers shows that investors may want to consider what impact President Barack Obama’s re-election will have on stock prices. Here’s why: GOP candidate Mitt Romney is generally seen as the only candidate capable of beating Obama in the fall, yet several factors are weighing against him even if he fends off Newt Gingrich’s latest surge. 1. Conservative Disaffection

Although conventional wisdom says that a moderate Republican is more likely to win a general election than a conservative, recent history has shown that GOP candidates can’t win without enthusiastic conservative support. Ronald Reagan won as a conservative candidate twice, and so did George W. Bush — although it’s a matter of debate how much Bush actually followed conservative principals once he was in office. On the other hand, Republicans who ran as moderates — George H.W. Bush (1992) and John McCain (2008) — were both soundly beaten.

Today, we see moderate Republican Mitt Romney running into similar problems as his predecessors. This is evident not just in polls, but also in Rick Santorum’s Iowa victory, the steady improvement in Ron Paul’s polling numbers, and the exit polling data from South Carolina showing conservatives flocking to Gingrich. Read 

If you watched the State of the Union address last night on television, you might not have gotten the whole picture. Those watching the SOTU address online at whitehouse.gov/sotu had access to an enhanced broadcast that included images and figures on the right-hand side of the screen that corresponded with President Barack Obama’s speech.

Fortunately for those of us who may have missed out on the enhanced broadcast, the White House has released the enhanced version of the speech on YouTube. A link to this video is shown below. For the unabridged, unedited transcript of the president’s SOTU address, check out this link.

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President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address may have been lacking in big ideas, but there was no shortage of policy proposals in the president’s annual speech. Washington Post writer Ezra Klein points out five of these policies we should be looking out for in 2012 and beyond.

1. The Buffett Tax

It wasn’t by coincidence that Warren Buffett’s secretary was a member of the audience for the SOTU address. Buffett has famously said that it is unfair that his secretary pays a higher percentage tax rate than he does. In effect, Obama proposed making the effective tax rate for millionaires at least 30%, by wiping out non-charitable tax breaks and deductions. This was one of the few points that Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels agreed with when giving the Republican rebuttal, saying we should “stop sending the wealthy benefits they do not need, and stop providing them so many tax preferences that distort our economy.” Read 

On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate-setting committee reinforced its previous statements that interest rates will be kept low for the foreseeable future. Here’s the full text of the Fed release regarding the Federal Open Market Committee meeting:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in December suggests that the economy has been expanding moderately, notwithstanding some slowing in global growth. While indicators point to some further improvement in overall labor market conditions, the unemployment rate remains elevated. Household spending has continued to advance, but growth in business fixed investment has slowed, and the housing sector remains depressed. Inflation has been subdued in recent months, and longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable. Read 

You may best remember Newt Gingrich as the former House Speaker from 1995-1999, but there’s probably a lot about the GOP presidential candidate you might not know. For instance, why is he called Newt? Well, The Fiscal Times has you covered, in an article discussing some facts about the current GOP frontrunner you might not know.

1. Before being elected to Congress, he was a professor

Specifically, he taught history and environmental studies at West Georgia College for eight years. His educational background, not surprisingly, is in history. He has a bachelor’s in history from Emory University, and earned his master’s and doctorate from Tulane. Read 

President Barack Obama’s third State of the Union address was disappointing, and not even a particularly good campaign speech. While he did provide the left with a nice list of small policy proposals, such as special tax rates for manufacturing, green energy and millionaires, he did not seize the moment to suggest any really big, new ideas.

One of the biggest differences between this year’s SOTU speech and last year’s was the rise in inequality as a major problem in this country. Sure, the Occupy Wall Street movement made headlines and provided great visuals, but more important, those protesters also gave oxygen to the idea that extreme inequalities of wealth are actually a problem for our democracy and for social mobility generally (a.k.a. the American Dream).

While Obama seemed as though he was going to use the speech to address inequality, he was vague at best and small at worst. The only thing he said about individual tax reform was a rehash of the millionaire’s tax idea: somehow ensuring an alternative minimum tax for people that make over $1 million annually and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for those households that make over $250,000. Read