We outweigh: Magnitude: US -Iran relations are at a breaking point and our dependence on their oil only adds to the

problem. HSR solves extend Ridlington & Kerth 10. Our transportation infrastructure is not on par with other countries who have already implemented a HSR system extend BAF 11. Their only impact is nuclear war with Iran if Obama is not re-elected. Ours are widespread nuclear war and a loss of hegemony/competitiveness. They say Obama won't be re-elected because HSR is unpopular. Extend Hill 10/22 the HSR IS popular and solves for ALL impacts Timeframe: Their impacts will happen WHEN and IF Mitt Romney is elected. Our impacts can happen NOW. US-Iran tensions are already at a breaking point and we are losing economic hegemony with our inefficient transportation infrastructure. Probability: Again, their impacts happen WHEN and IF Mitt Romney is elected. They are not 100% sure. Our impacts have a 100% probability of ensuing. In fact, we are already losing economic heg compared to countries like China who already have a HSR system

Non-unique Obama has already inserted $4 Billion for High Speed Rail in his American Jobs Act extend Meggison 11. The plan is popular with Senate and the public. California has asked for $4.7 Billion and Florida $2.5 for building HSR systems extend Hill 10/22.

High Speed rail is popular alleviates congestion The Independent 09 [Obama signals US rail revolution, Lexis Nexis]
Impatience with road congestion and growing awareness of global warming means Mr Obama's vision of up to 10 regional high speed rail networks is likely to be politically popular. Encouraging him behind the scenes is Vice President Joe Biden, a self-confessed railway lover.

Moderate republicans like it The New York Times 2-14-09 [A Smaller, Faster Stimulus Plan, but Still With a Lot of Money, Lexis Nexis]
While most spending was scaled back in the agreement, one area saw a huge increase: money for high-speed rail was quadrupled, to $8 billion. High-speed rail is popular with several moderate Republicans being courted to support the stimulus package.

I-4 is key to the election Associated Press 6-3-12 [In Florida fight, Obama and Romney scrap along I-4, http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/jul/03/inflorida-fight-obama-and-romney-scrap-along-i/] ORLANDO, Fla. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - In

the presidential battleground with the biggest prize, Democrat Barack Obama is

focused on ratcheting up voter turnout in Florida's university towns, its Hispanic enclaves around Orlando and its Jewish communities in the south. Republican challenger Mitt Romney is working to squeeze as many votes as possible out of north Florida's conservative military bastions, the senior-heavy Gulf Coast and Miami's Cuban community. But their strategies to energize core supporters overlap in the central Florida swing-voting region that's key to winning the state and its 29 electoral votes. Voters

along Interstate 4, which stretches from Tampa Bay to Daytona Beach, will determine the outcome if the race remains close into the fall, as expected. About 45 percent of the state's voters live in that 17-county area. "Neither party has enough base alone, which is why those persuadable places, particularly along the I-4 corridor, are so important," said Steve
Schale, a Democrat who ran Obama's Florida campaign four years ago.

Florida Proves HSR is Popular

The New York Times 3-12-11 [How Flaws Undid Obama's Hope For High-Speed Rail in Florida, Lexis Nexis]
When the Obama administration chose Florida to get a large chunk of stimulus money to build the nation's first high-speed rail line, some Republicans in Washington worried privately that the project might prove too popular. It was, after all, a multibillion-dollar federal project being lavished on Florida, an important swing state that President Obama had won in the last election, with the money focused squarely on the Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando, the home of one of the most crucial blocs of independent voters in the state.

HSR popular in Ohiofunds private sector jobs and helps local economies Somanader 2011 (Tanya, ThinkProgress, http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/01/03/137048/ohio-kasich-jobs/?mobile=nc)
Rather than acknowledge the number of jobs created or kept afloat by Democratic policies like the Recovery Act, Republicans

insist that

Democrats have done nothing to help create private-sector jobs. Future House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has said, Washington has kept the private sector in bust while manufacturing a boom for the public sector. Boehners bosom-buddy Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) beat a similar drum on the campaign trail. Touting his plan to help the private-sector quickly help create jobs,
Kasich insisted he would help improve the atmosphere in our state for real business development by meeting the needs of businesses to overcome governmental snafus. But

Kasich undermined his rhetoric by killing Ohios high-speed rail project. In doing so, he derailed many businesses economic development plans and effectively killed the private-sector jobs he promised to create, leaving one businessman to call his decision unbelievable, mindboggling, and naive: Locally, certain not to happen is construction of a $15 million facility planned for Columbus by US Railcar Co. The plant would have employed up to 200 when fully staffed, said Mike Pracht, president and chief executive officer of the Columbus-based railroad-car manufacturer. Its unbelievable these states would send back $400 million and $800 million in free money, Pracht said. Its mind-boggling. The only thing I can compare it to is the interstate-highway program back in the 60s. Where would Ohio be today if it opted out of the interstate highway system? To suggest passenger rail would be any different is naive. Pracht said that in addition to the jobs his company would have added, abandoning the rail plan negates millions of dollars in potential development that would have clustered around each rail

station along the 258-mile route. Prachts anger is legitimate. The Cleveland developer Forest City Enterprises was planning projects that would
create $180 million of taxable property. Dayton, OH anticipated around $250 million worth of downtown development around the rail station and, in Columbus, OH, the rail line was expected to spur business development and provide a link between Downtown and Port Columbus. But, as Forest Citys spokesman put it, Clearly, it wont happen now. Its a governmental decision. A decision that has already cost Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) private-sector jobs as well. But Kasich

is

unrelenting in his mission to overtly rebuke his campaign promises. While acknowledging that the train would create private-sector jobs, Kasichs spokesman Rob Nichols scoffed Kasich wasnt going to build a train that will cost taxpayers. A curious excuse given the fact that Kasich is perfectly willing to spend taxpayer money to pay for
security improvements at his own private residence. Because Kasich is choosing to be the first Ohio governor in a generation to live in his private residence rather than in the already secured governors mansion, Ohioans will now pay for around-the clock security at the Kasich home as well as at the official residence.

Decisions like these help to explain the seven point drop in his approval rating before hes even taken office. But rather than rethink high-speed rail and his other poor economic policies, Kasich is committed to driving the state into further economic disaster. As Nichols said, We had the debate. The train is dead. The
matter is closed.

Ohio key to electionthe only issue that matters there is the unemployment rate Suddes 4/21 (Thomas, Editorial Board member of the Plain Dealer,
http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/04/ohios_vote_can_hinge_on_unempl.html)
Still, it's a fact that no

Republican has reached the White House without winning Ohio. And since before the Civil War, only

three Democrats -- Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892, Franklin Roosevelt in 1944 and John Kennedy in 1960 -- have moved into or stayed in the White House without Ohio's backing. To be sure, it's unclear that an Ohio presidential election pivots on the state unemployment rate; from county to county, conditions vary. And unemployment

rates are double-edged. In October 2010, just before Republican John Kasich unseated Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, Ohio's unemployment rate was 9.6 percent. So -- should Ohioans thank Kasich, or Obama, because Ohio's March unemployment rate was 7.5 percent? In truth, politicians of both parties want to have it both ways.
When times are good, pols applaud themselves; when times are hard, pols denounce the banks or the oil companies -- or the other party. In 1976, Democrat Jimmy Carter carried Ohio. He unseated Republican President Gerald Ford. Ohio's October 1976 unemployment rate was 7.5 percent. In October 1980, Ohio's unemployment rate was 9.5 percent. Sayonara, Jimmy Carter. In October 1984, unemployment in Ohio wasn't much better (9.1 percent), but it was better, and Ohioans helped re-elect Ronald Reagan. Ohioans gave the White House to Republican George H.W. Bush in 1988; the state's October 1988 unemployment rate was 5.8 percent. In October 1992, the Ohio unemployment rate was 7.3 percent, and voters retired Bush I by electing Democrat Bill Clinton. (And for all Bubba's defects, Ohio's unemployment rate was 4.9 percent just before his 1996 re-election and 3.9 percent -- a figure that today seems incredibly low -- as Clinton's presidency ended.) During the eight Octobers of Republican Dick Cheney's reign (doing business as "George W. Bush"), the peak October unemployment rate was 7.3 percent -just before Barack Obama carried Ohio with 51.4 percent of its vote. (Neither Carter, in 1976, nor Harry Truman, in 1948, could garner 50 percent of Ohio's presidential vote; each drew about 49 percent of it.) Whatever

Romney's virtues, the former Massachusetts governor has the charisma of a tree stump. And outer-suburban and rural Ohio Republicans preferred Rick Santorum in March's primary. But if Ohio's unemployment rate doesn't fall further -- and look as if it's staying down -- the 2012 World Series may be the last that Barack Obama will get to watch on a White House TV.

Turn: Our aff IS popular. It is what WILL get Obama re-elected. Our aff solves our advantages and their advantages. Extend our Oil and Competitiveness advantage cards from the 1AC. States are pushing for funding for HSR and that will win Obama the election and solve the impacts.