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Advantage Obama

The force is with Barack Obama, the putative nominee of the Democratic Party, as he moves on from a gruelling primary campaign into general election mode. Over several past electoral cycles, the two major parties in the United States garnered roughly equal shares of the popular vote. The pattern appears to have changed with voter registration records showing that self-identified Democrats now outnumber Republicans. To offset this advantage, the putative Republican nominee John McCain would have to do exceptionally well among independent voters. Recent surveys of public opinion do show that the Republican has cut into the lead the Democrat established earlier within this voting bloc. However, Mr. McCain has much more work to do as his rival is ahead in the overall count by 48 per cent to 42 — a substantial lead. Normally, the Republican would have been able to draw some consolation from the fact that his party’s nominee in the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush, trailed his Democratic rival, John Kerry, by the same margin at this stage in the race and went on to win decisively. Unfortunately for Mr. McCain, he cannot even allude to this fact as it would be tantamount to suicidal identification with an incumbent President whose job approval rating hovers around 29 per cent. The Republican might be able to gain a real advantage only if another terrorist atrocity is committed against Americans. In the public opinion polls, this was about the only sphere in which Mr. McCain outscored Mr. Obama by a significant margin (14 percentage points).

Even that calculation might not hold good. After all, if an atrocity does take place, it would occur under the watch of a Republican administration that has been obsessed with its ‘global war’ on terrorism. Yet another failure on this front would only highlight the Grand Old Party’s miserable performance in every other sphere over the past eight years. On economic issues, which figure at the top of the list of voter concerns, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain by 16 percentage points in the opinion polls. The margins are even wider when those polled are asked to identify the candidate who has the better approach to other issues likely to figure prominently in the presidential election. Mr. Obama leads by 20 percentage points on the oil price rise; by a similar margin on health care; by 27 points on environmental issues; and by 32 points on issues of special concern to women. One thing the dynamic Obama campaign must avoid at this stage is complacency. Secondly, Mr. Obama must make a clever choice of vice-presidential running mate — someone who will complement his strengths, for example by expanding the ticket’s support among women voters and bringing in white blue-collar voters in greater numbers to checkmate Mr. McCain.

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