Against mounting odds and challenges

In what is shaping to be an historic election, the American voters, or at least two-thirds of them, will be heading to the polls on November 4, to choose between Barack Hussain Obama the Democratic Presidential candidate and his running mate Joe Biden on one hand and John Sidney McCain III and his running mate Sarah Palin on the other.

It is the first election since 1952 where neither the sitting president nor his vice-president opted to seek the presidency or the nomination to represent their party in the presidential elections.

It is the first presidential election where the candidate of one of the two major political parties is not a "WASP" but a minority who happens to be African American, which is an accomplishment in its own right, which most Americans did not expect to experience in their life-time.

It is also the first presidential election witnessing the oldest candidate ever running for office. McCain is 72 years old, the oldest presidential candidate to seek the office of the president of the US.

This election is fielding the second female candidate to the office of the vice-president.

Regardless of who wins the presidency, it will be the first election since John F. Kennedy won the race in 1960 that a Senator will make it to the White House.

What is ironic about this election, is that it comes after eight years of tumultuous and hectic rule of the Bush administration which leaves a much checkered legacy of political, security and economic pitfalls represented by unfinished wars, economic meltdown and sapping confidence in the US political system.

The US role domestically and internationally is on the wane, in an international system turning more and more into a multipolar world rooting more for Obama and less for McCain.

It is telling how McCain is striving so hard to distance himself from Bush by refusing to ask him to campaign for him and by attacking his administration's record when earlier McCain voted more than 90 per cent in support of Bush's legislation. With Bush popularity rating at 28 per cent, an all-time low, three-quarters of the Americans believe the US is heading in the wrong direction. No wonder McCain is moving away from Bush.

The odds also seem stacked up against Obama. In this race, he does not belong to the mainstream US politicians. His background as a liberal, and his middle name, Hussain, and his last name which rhymes with Osama. If it were not for all these handicaps, he should have been eyeing a landslide and possibly leading by more than 20 per cent.

His beleaguered opponent John McCain has a lot of hurdles to overcome, not least the lopsided disadvantage in fundraising. He is trailing in national polls and more damaging he is behind in the critical battleground states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Nevada among other red states which vote solidly Republican.

Frenzied leap

If we read the poll results, one can't help but ask why McCain is still in the race. Obama leads by around 10 per cent nationally, he leads and outspends McCain in some red states 3 to 1. Obama leads in almost all categories and demographic segments. He leads among Independents, women, Catholics by and large especially among Blacks and among Hispanics. McCain only leads among White and Evangelical voters and ties Obama only among male voters.

Even the results of the early voting which 32 states allow indicate that Obama is leading in some states by more than 2 to 1 while is very close in other states. Which puts Obama in a comfortable position on his last frenzied leap towards the White House.

Barack Obama is buoyed by the economic meltdown, which is driving the US into a recession with Wall Street losing 40 per cent of its value in just a year with mounting budget deficit and record national debt. What adds to the bleak prospect for McCain is the dwindling popularity of President Bush. Add to that Obama's record fundraising and spending ability that is set to break all presidential campaign spending records. What contributed more to the lacklustre McCain campaign was his wrong choice of running mate in Sarah Palin. In the beginning, she proved to be a boon to the ticket with Hurricane Sarah starting off with a bang, and then dwindling to a whimper and later on becoming a drag. Even some moderate Republicans were taken aback by her mediocre and shallow competence.

More than 65 newspapers have endorsed Obama in comparison to a third of that number endorsing McCain. The conservative Chicago Tribune broke its 160-year tradition of endorsing a Republican.

The New York Times endorsement of Obama was telling. In its editorial on October 24, 2008, the New York Times presented a convincing exposé "Barack Obama for President" - it was poignant and appropriate.

It lambasted McCain for "retreating farther and farther to the fringes of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism. His policies and worldview are mired in the past. His choice of a running mate so evidently unfit for the office was a final act of opportunism and bad judgment that eclipsed the accomplishments of 26 years in Congress". The editorial concluded its article, by arguing; "This politics of fear, division and character assassination helped Mr Bush drive Mr McCain from the 2000 Republican primaries and defeat Senator John Kerry in 2004. It has been the dominant theme of his failed presidency. The nation's problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing "robo-calls" and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities."

Regardless of who wins this historic and critical elections, the next US president will have to face mounting odds and unprecedented challenges on the home front and abroad!

Dr Abdullah Al Shayji is Professor of International Relations and the Head of the American Studies Unit, Kuwait University.