From the Archives: Assessing the US Election (5 September)

Flashback: This column originally ran on Watching America on our big-sibling site Libertas, just after the Party Conventions. Two months later, I think it stands up well. My only regret is that I didn't place that bet on Obama.

With the conclusion of the Party Conventions, we can finally get to the real campaignin'. Convenient then that the folks at the British-American Business Council asked me for a 500-word reading of who might be walking into the White House next January. In the end, fascination and a bit of obsession led to 1500.

In a nutshell: The first major clues will come next week after the big polling organisations use the Labor Day weekend to get a post-convention snapshot of the electorate. 

But Barack Obama, even at 9-4 on, is looking good value for a bet.

THIS IS THE DEMOCRATS’ ELECTION TO LOSE

Of course, the Republicans do not have the advantage of incumbency, as President Bush could not run again under American law. Equally important, it is a hard task to hand over to a successor --- since 1945, a Party has only retained the White House for a 3^rd term on 1 of 6 occasions. (George H.W. Bush was able to follow Ronald Reagan in 1989.) Given the unpopularity of the Bush Administration, the task is even tougher this time. That is why President Bush and his close advisors have been tucked away in the broom cupboards by the McCain campaign, with the President making a lacklustre eight-minute appearance on video and Vice-President Cheney holding court in Georgia --- not the American Georgia but the one halfway around the world.

The issues are running against the Republicans. Iraq has turned from immediate victory to extended, tiring nightmare to a conflict that most Americans would like to forget; the War on Terror hasn’t captured Osama; and Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, and now the conflict in the Caucasus are confusing issues with no easy resolutions. Far more importantly, the US economy is faltering into possible recession, accompanied by a series of symbolic “crises”. Voters are worried about their pensions, their mortgages, and rising prices for food and energy.

A colleague captured the moment in May when he spoke for many comfortably middle-class neighbours: “We’re worried that our 411Ks (pension funds) have halved in value.”

In 2004 Bush offset accusations of economic mismanagement by playing the “national security” card. Even so, he barely made it back to the White House, surviving by the margin of a few thousand votes in Ohio. Four years later, waving the red flag of warning against terrorists and tyrants is an even riskier proposition.

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY?

The Democratic campaign, however, has failed to capitalise on its opportunity; indeed, by mid-August, the Obama campaign was looking more than a bit jittery.

Obama, as an politician, as an orator, and, for some, as a visionary, played a blinder at the start of 2008. He captured the imagination of many current voters with his concept of “change”; more importantly, he brought in the largest number of new voters in recent history.

Then Hillary Clinton, seeing her grasp on the Democratic nomination slip away, counter-attacked. Using a pernicious tactic of guilt by association (and sneakily inserting the question of African-American “reliability”), she labelled Obama an extremist because of his church leader, Jeremiah Wright, and political activists such as the former ‘60s radical William Ayers. When Obama blocked this with an outstanding speech on race, she switched to the theme of her representation of the “working-class” (read whites) with their love of guns, church, and community.

Obama slipped up, notably through an off-the-record talk in San Francisco noting that said love of guns and church could be distractions from economic worries. What was needed was a full presentation of those economic worries and some ideas for dealing with this, but Obama --- short on policy as opposed to vision --- didn’t deliver.

While this didn’t deny the nomination to the Senator of Illinois, it offered a liferaft to the Republicans: “culture wars”.

RELEASE THE CULTURAL HOUNDS

Throughout US history, it has been an electoral tactic and a feature of political life to hold up the threat of the “un-American”. Since the 1960s and especially in the last twenty years, that “un-American” tag has been slapped on certain issues, such as immigration and, after 9-11, “national security”. Those issues, however, may not prove long-term vote-winners. The Republicans, for example, have relegated immigration as a campaign theme in the face of a sizeable backlash against anti-immigrant rhetoric and a very sizeable Hispanic-American vote. And, in contrast, to recent campaigns, they are no longer bashing “gay rights” and even the possibility of same-sex marriage.

So the culture war is one best fought against caricatures: “angry leftists” who would support enemy governments and terrorists, “extremists” like outspoken feminists and African-American activists, and “elitist liberals”. It is this war that underlay both the choice of Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee and her acceptance speech, which mobilised the Republican Convention, on 3 September. While unsubtly trying the tactic of a woman will vote for a woman, the Republicans can also position Palin as the small-town Mom who is “one of us”. This in turn means she can cut loose on those who not “part of us”, the working-class, church-loving folk of America.

WILL IT WORK IN PEORIA? PROBABLY NOT

The Democrats yet again failed to slam the door on this Republican strategy. Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention was great on style, which in turn gave a significant “bounce” both in polls and in registration of voters, but short on an approach to economic and social issues. Failing to even note the economic gorilla in the room, the Federal budget deficit, he relied on general platitudes about taxing fat cats (while cutting taxes for the small business and working man) and making American health care and education the best in the world.

But, with the Palin strategy, the Republicans have probably handed back this gift. If the Democrats have failed to put forth key issues, McCain will not be able to avoid them. Palin’s importance, after the press gets over the beauty-queen, Hockey Mom novelty, lies in her political stances. She’s staunchly anti-abortion, for the teaching of creationism, very much for guns, and sceptical of environment and energy-control measures to the point where she denies that global warming is a man-made phenomenon.

This will all come out, Simply put, elections are not won by appealing to the activist edges of American politics, which is often your base Party support, but to the centre. George W. Bush made that play in 2000, even as Vice President Cheney hovered behind him, with the spin of “compassionate conservatism”.

The hope for the Republicans is that McCain could balance Palin by putting forth his own centrist position. Indeed, in style, he did so in his acceptance of the Republican nomination with a low-key speech calling for an end to partisan rancour. However, he did not do so on issues. Absent was any reference to his earlier stance that climate change must be addressed. Absent was his centrist position on an acceptance, rather than a stigmatising, of immigration. Absent was his now-distant call for an end to US torture of enemy suspects.

And absent was any semblance of an economic strategy. Of course, that’s because there is no easy fix to the mess --- national and global --- that has been stirred up since 2001, but McCain has also been brutally honest about his own weakness in grasping and dealing with economic concepts.

Which brings out the curiousity in McCain’s speech. Far from praising the Bush Administration, he came to slay it. His speech was an effective dismissal of President Bush for his failure to bring together the Republican Party and “America”. So, he said, I can be the guy to heal the divisions.

McCain and Palin, the “outsiders”, running against “Washington insiders” who include their current Party leaders? Palin the red-meat-huntin’-chewin’-spittin’ activist alongside McCain the maverick moderator?

In a campaign where the key issues cannot be addressed (by the Republicans) and apparently will not be addressed (by the Democrats), I think it’s a gamble that fails.

DOING THE MATHS

The saving grace in evaluating the curiosities of the campaign is that the maths, if not the US electoral system, are much simpler.

Of the 50 US states, 34 (as well as the District of Columbia) are pretty much “locks” for one candidate or the other. That in turn means Obama has a grip on 183 of the 270 electoral votes needed for victory; McCain has 142.

Obama’s lead seems secure in four states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon) which the Democrats carried in 2004 and one (Iowa) which they lost. That’s another 55 electoral votes, for a total of 238. The possible slip-ups are in Michigan (17 votes), which has been a tighter race than the Democratic victories in the last two elections (but where Obama’s lead has been increasing), and in New Hampshire (4 votes).

What does this mean? If McCain cannot pull Michigan or New Hampshire into his column, then the Republicans have to avoid any unexpected surprises (keep an eye on Missouri). They not only have to hold the “Big Two” that put Bush into office both in 2000 and 2004 --- Florida (27 votes) and Ohio (20) --- but also almost all of the following: Nevada (5), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5), Virginia (13), and North Carolina (15).