US Election Fever: The Build Up In A Nutshell

With little less than 2 weeks before the United States elections we continue to be bombarded with information from across the Atlantic. I guarantee that most people are now as familiar with the two (realistic) presidential candidates and their respective running mates as they are with the finalists of the X factor.

These elections, in particular, have an added incentive. They ensure that regardless of the winning side, a taboo will be broken in that country. Either they will have the first black president of their history or a female vice-president who also happens to be a VPCILF (vice-presidential candidate... err... you get the idea). Yes, it doesn’t roll off the tongue and I have lost the plot for saying that in a female magazine, but it’s bloody true.

The latest information, and indeed the information we have been getting for quite a long time now, is that the election is very much a matter of “by how much will Obama win?” rather than “can he win?”. Obama, according to the polls, is becoming unquestionably dominant in big swing states like Michigan, where the real battlegrounds are. Indeed, he has even won a few ‘safe’ Republican states (like Virginia and North Carolina). Also, according to research, the majority of independent voters became more likely to vote Obama after the televised presidential debates. But can we really trust the pollsters?

In America, where race is a touchy subject and political correctness is more than a way of life, the press has insisted on the relevance of what is known in the American political arena as ‘The Bradley Effect’. This phenomenon is named after a black Los Angeles mayor who lost the California governor race after a comfortable lead in the polls. Its basic premise is simple: people lie. And if one of the issues raised is race, it appears they lie even more. So the massive Obama lead could turn out to be, in fact, not that much of a lead at all.

Now, that puts a completely different spin on the whole process. It could really mean that the race is as tight as ever and McCain could make a comeback very much like he did on the Republican primaries. The problem is that I am old-school when it comes to world changing situations like these. I follow the money.
The question on Obama’s lead becomes a lot less daunting when you see that the worst possible odds for him becoming president at a number of bookies as at the time this article was written was 1/8. As for the man with the juggernaut jaws, the best possible odds for him to win were 9/2. But don’t let that alone convince you. After all, these numbers are largely based on the polls themselves and are also, obviously, just gambling.

A considerably more important number which has just been released regards donations to Obama’s campaign: a whopping $153 million dollars on the month of September alone. That’s equivalent to a turnover of over $1.8 billion dollars a year (nearly £1 billion pounds). Enough to get George Osborne to do a lot more than just go to your yacht.

McCain, on the other hand, compared to Obama’s spending, seems to be funded by his grandchildren’s piggy banks (McCain opted for public funding). It is hardly a surprise then that McCain has turned to personal attacks. It probably is the only way for the oven chips magnate to level the playing field. He did try a different approach in order to balance the republican ticket with his choice of VP. He needed someone young, vibrant and who could make peace with the conservative America which doesn’t think much of him.

As a bonus, if McCain picked a woman he could try to inherit some of Hillary Clinton’s leftover voters, some of which were unhappy with the idea of Barack Obama as president of the United States after an embittered primaries dispute with the Democratic candidate. After Paris Hilton declined deciding to run her own campaign, he decided on Sarah Palin, a ‘pit-bull with lipstick’ who manages to patronise every person in the world, including herself, and still impress certain people.

The problem is that much like everything else in McCain’s campaign, everything that could go wrong has done. The Republican’s every strategic attack on Obama seems to come back to himself. The most recent blunder revolving around the figure of a certain ‘Joe the Plumber’, who criticised Obama’s tax policies on television and was a massive character on the final presidential debate, who was later found neither to be a plumber nor indeed to be called Joe.

If you sense these personal attacks smell of desperation, well... you are definitely right. McCain knows himself that he is aboard a sinking ship and that the Democrats are on their way to one of the biggest win in decades. Although McCain himself would be a massive improvement on George W. Bush, it is unlikely people see the two differently. This has indeed been the focus of the Democratic campaign particularly with regards to the economy. The Clinton catch phrase of 1992 -“It’s the economy, stupid” - never seemed so relevant during this credit-crunch period.

Obama is seen as the one with the economic expertise and that is going to be reflected even further on the polls. His main challenge, however, is to get complacent voters to the polling booths. If they do show up, I bet you 150 million dollars that he wins.