Canta Feature on US Elections

So far the 2008 American Presidential election campaign has been one of the most dramatic in history. Be it Barack Obama’s stunning rise from eloquent underdog to bonafide front runner, or John McCain’s stunning comeback after his campaign imploded in 2007, the campaign has been full of dramatic moments. With mere months to go now until the polls open, national polls from America show the race at an almost dead heat, with just 3 percent separating the two candidates according to a recent Gallup Poll, one of America’s most reliable polling services.
Despite the closeness of the race, the two candidates offer vastly different visions for America’s future, and vastly different solutions to the problems the nation faces. Senator John McCain, the 71 year old presidential nominee of the Republican Party, the party of incumbent president George W. Bush, is a classic compassionate conservative.

He mixes a strong commitment to free trade and tax cuts, the bread and butter of conservative economic policies, with liberal social and foreign policies that have won him great support from independent voters. Sen. McCain has earned himself a reputation as a political maverick, someone who will go against his party line and transcend the normal ideological squabbles, with his support of liberal issues like battling climate change. He has also been vocal in his opposition to the use of controversial “interrogation” techniques such as water boarding, and has promised one of his first acts as President would be to close Guantanamo Bay and ensure “America never tortures another person.”

McCain speaks with great credibility on these matters due to his years as a victim of torture in a Prisoner of War camp during the Vietnam War. His military experience also gives him strong credibility on matters of foreign policy, 72% of American’s telling a recent Washington Post poll that McCain would make a good commander in chief, as opposed to just 48% who say the same of his opponent.

McCain will need all the credibility on matters of economics and the military that he can get, as he faces the daunting task of convincing an American Public who do not seem to agree with him on these major issues. The Arizona Senator, whose economic policies bear a marked similarity to those of President Bush, will be worried by recent polls that show Americans are dissatisfied with the state of their economy and their nation. A Gallup poll from July 21st showed that 80% of American’s have a negative view of the current state of the economy, with just 7 percent holding a positive one. Even more worrying for the McCain campaign is a much cited poll CBS/New York Times on April 3rd, which says more than 80% of respondents said they were “dissatisfied with the direction of the country”, while 81% thought that “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track”.

Combine this with President Bush’s abysmal approval ratings, with a realclearpolitics.com averaging of national polls on July 21st finding him to have the support of just 28 percent of the population, and McCain’s task of convincing Americans to vote for four more years of republican rule is a difficult one.

It is made even more difficult by the immense hype surrounding his opponent. Barack Obama, a 46 year old Senator from Illinois, is being hyped by many as a transformational figure in American politics. The first ever African American presidential nominee from either of the major parties, he rode a tidal wave of grass roots support to a stunning victory over the seemingly unbeatable Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary Contest.

Obama promotes himself as a reformer, someone who will change the American political system, bringing an end to the gutter politics and vested interests of the Bush Years. His campaign slogan “Change We Can Believe In” has struck a chord with those millions of American voters who do think their country is on the wrong track. Obama himself is an impressive figure, despite being relatively new to the national political scene (few had even heard of him before 2004) his eloquent and uplifting speechmaking has won him comparisons to both John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Obama is immensely popular amongst younger voters, and has driven hundreds of thousands of first time voters to turn out and support him.

In terms of policy Obama is markedly different from McCain. Obama is in many ways a classic liberal politician. He favours universal health care, energy independence, increased spending on infrastructure and investment, and removing the multibillion dollar tax cuts George bush granted to the rich. For many however the defining point of difference between the two candidates is Obama’s opposition to the War in Iraq, a war McCain supports. Obama promises to withdraw American troops from Iraq, to be redeployed in Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and pursue Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Obama says the Iraq war was a costly distraction from the War on Terror, and thinks that within 16 months of becoming president he will have been able to complete what he calls his “measured withdrawal” of American combat troops in Iraq.

McCain on the other hand believes that pulling out of Iraq will leave the country in chaos, something America will be responsible for. The two candidates have engaged in a bitter and heated debate on the issue, the most recent development being that the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has voiced preference for Obama’s withdrawal plans.

Despite their differences, the two candidates do share some similarities. Both tout themselves as able to work across party lines, to move beyond the partisan squabbles that have been the hallmark of the Bush years. It is a claim where McCain has more credibility, having a strong track record of bipartisan co-operation, including on campaign finance laws that many within in his own party saw as a betrayal. Obama is no hostage to partisan concerns however, cosponsoring a bill in congress with Republican Senator Tom Coburn aimed at cutting Government Waste and increasing transparency in spending, something that ruffled the feathers of many big spending Democrats. With both men promising to deliver change in Washington, and the race so close, who is likely to win?

At this stage, it’s pretty hard to call, but Sen. Obama does appear to be in a slightly better position.

Rather than a direct voting system like we have in New Zealand, where whoever gets the most votes forms a government, the American system is more splintered, reflecting the belief in separation of powers that is the great strength of American Government. Each state is assigned a set number of what are called Electoral College votes, based on population. For example California, the most populace state, gets 55 electoral votes, while Alaska a far less populated state gets just 3. On polling day, whoever gets the most votes in a state wins its electoral votes. So winning California gets you 55 votes, Alaska nets 3 votes etc. There are a total of 538 electoral votes up for grabs in the election. Of these, who ever can get to 270 votes becomes the president.

This voting system means that it is whoever wins the most states that is important, rather than whoever wins the most votes.

So who is in the better position to win the 270 electoral votes needed?

As it stands, Barack Obama.

The easiest way for John McCain to win in this election is simply to win all the states George Bush won in 2004. Bush won himself 286 electoral votes, and if McCain can stop Obama from turning enough of those states Democrat in 2008, he will win the white house. So McCain would in theory have the easiest road to the presidency, simply needing to convince voters in those states to vote as they did in the last election.

Obama has the much harder task of winning all the states John Kerry won in 2004, while adding an extra 19 Electoral College votes to his haul. If McCain can flip even one of the Kerry states, Obama’s task becomes even harder. If he can flip one that yields a large number of electoral votes, such as Pennsylvania which went to Kerry by a slim margin in 2004, and would yield him 21 extra electoral votes, then the Obama campaign is effectively sunk.

However, current polling from the various states suggest that not only is McCain going to have an almost impossible time flipping Kerry States, he may not even be able to hold onto the Bush states. Of the Bush states that McCain needs to hold, current polling has Obama within striking distance of taking Montana (3 electoral college votes), Colorado (9) New Mexico (10), Florida (27), Ohio (20) as well as closing the gap in traditionally strong Republican states like Texas and Alaska. If Obama were to win Ohio for instance, and a poll from July 21st had Obama up 8 percent in the state, it would be almost impossible for McCain to win. If Obama took Ohio and say, New Mexico then McCain is done. At current polling levels, he is expected to take both.

To offset these possible losses, McCain needs to be able to flip some big Kerry states. Of the Kerry states however only New Mexico and Pennsylvania seem even close to being up for grabs and Obama still has a clear lead in both.

That’s not to say all is lost for McCain however. The Republican Party is known for death defying comebacks, often driven by attacking the weaknesses of their opponents. As a candidate Obama has many weaknesses ripe for attack by the Republicans. With his childhood in Indonesia, his foreign sounding name, controversial statements about guns and religion, as well as a myriad of controversial associates in his past like 60’s wannabe revolutionary William Ayers, Obama lacks appeal to the notoriously patriotic American middle classes. In the primary battle with Hillary Clinton, Obama polled poorly with the so called “Reagan Democrats”, those uneducated middle class whites who traditionally voted Democrat but in recent years have voted Republican due their social conservatism. Obama’s big spending plans will also be a turn off to economically conservative voters, at a time when the American Government faces huge deficits. Obama has the hard task of convincing voters that the government can afford billions of dollars in new spending at a time when it is trillions of dollars in debt.

Most importantly however has been the damage he has done to himself through so called “Flip flops”. In 2004 the Republican Attack machine was able to destroy John Kerry’s image by successfully attacking Kerry over repeated changes in position. The image of Kerry in the mind of voters was of an indecisive weak man unable to lead the world’s only superpower. Obama has run the risk of exposing himself to similar attacks with a number of high profile policy reversals. In 2007 he promised he would opt into America’s public financing campaign, and thus limit himself to an 85 million dollar spending limit, just as John McCain has done. However Obama recently broke his promise, meaning he will have no spending limits in the campaign, but did so at the expense of damaging the voters trust in him.

On top of this Obama voted in favour of a bill granting legal amnesty to any phone company found to have taken part in illegal wire tapping on behalf of the bush administration. This decision was seen as a betrayal by Obama’s liberal supporters, and was seized upon by Republicans as proof that despite his promises of change, Obama is just another politician. A man ready and willing to break promises, lie, and distort the truth to win votes. It remains to be seen if these attacks will damage Obama enough to stop him from winning vital states like Ohio, but they offer hope to Republican supporters that while Obama may be leading, he is not unbeatable.

At this stage however, Obama is the clear front runner. As long as he can avoid disastrous mistakes, or damaging scandals, he looks to be a safe pick to win the elections. However American History is full of Democratic nominees who should win the election, but don’t. Obama just has to hope he can avoid that fate. If he can he will be in a position to make good on the promise so many see in him.