The Moon of Liberty

I have not written here for some time. It's time I did. And where better to start than the most exciting election in years. On November 4th the United states will select tehir successor to President Bush. One thing is for sure, forget waffle about landslides and easy victories, this election will be close, very close. There are even scenarios where it could be a dead draw.

How can this be you may ask? The conventional media suggest it's all sown up. On the Democrat side is Barak Obama, aiming to be the first black President. He is young, dynamic, charasmatic, tells a great story, inspires hope, gives a first rate speech everytime he is at the platform. By contrast the Republicans have John McCain, 72 years old, sometimes struggles to give a speech, he represents the party of that hated President Bush. The Republicans are unpopular, McCain lacks Obama's charisma and youth and despite being known as a moderate Republican, surely represents an old America that does not stand a chance against the new, dynamic Obama. So there we are, this race is all over is it? One way traffic, surely?

Well, no actually it's not. In this election most of what you see does not represent what will actually decide this election. Take Obama's speech in Berlin, in Europe seen as a triumph, in the US seen as arrogant. McCain actually gained ground in the polls durin that time, given the almost fanatical coverage from the BBC and other European news networks at the time you would not have known it it the UK or in Europe though.

So lets move to the last week or so. last week in Denver the Democrats held their convention. all the big guns rallied behind Obama, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, and Obama finished the show on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's famous 'I have a dream' speech with an excellent speech of his own, complete with all the glamour and razmatazz of 80,000 people in attendence at the home of the Denver Broncos NFL stadium.

Nobody can deny it was impressive. All in tune with the theme we have heard all along of the young dynamic man's march to history and the White House. But how has it really gone down. Had it enabled Obama to stretch out to a huge unassailable lead leaving poor John McCain in his wake. well, according to the historically most reliabally accurate pollster in America, Rasmussen Research, no it has not. As of today on the eve of the Republican convention, coming after a week of wall to wall positive US coverage, Obama's lead is merely 3%. McCain is actually less of a deficit behind going into his convention than Bush was behind Kerry going into his four years ago.

Bush of course went on to win. There is no certainty McCain will, but to understand this election look no further than the postion state by state, do that and you realise despite all the fervour for Obama, this election is actually in John McCain's hands to win or lose. That's right, I said it's in John McCain's hands to win or lose.

Here is Rasmussen's state by state position. The number in brackets is the number of electoral college votes each state is given o a winner takes all basis. 270 are needed to win the election. If you except the states on one side or the other go the way shown (and it is hard to imagine more than one or two at the most won't) the college vote position is Obama 264 McCain 247 with three states so close we can't give them to either candidate. The colours show which way they voted in 2004, red for Republican, blue for Democrat. Notice the three toss up states are red, Colorado, Virginia and Nevada. If McCain wins these, it is almost impossible to see how Obama can win. as the lead in the closest states given to McCain would be won by a bigger margin still.

This means to win this election McCain has to win threestates that voted Bush in 2004, all states won by small margins as a result of christians, gun owners, and supporters of low taxation coming out to support President Bush. They are not asking if they want McCain or Obama in the White House, indeed Obama is not even in the equation. Their concern is whether McCain is conservative enough to be in the White House. They fear his maverick tendencies, they don't like the fact he does not make religion a big issue in his politics.

This week McCain  showed his maverick streak again, picking relative unknown Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska, as his Vice-Presidential pick. Many believe this is to exploit Democrat devisions amongst women who wnated Hilary Clinton to be the Democrat nomination. It may or may not have this effect, but Palin is also a very tradition, christian, anti-abortion, low tax Republican. Very reassuring maybe to those in Colorado, Nevada and Virginia who McCain needs on side to win this election. These people will decide it all, not east coast Democrats, left-wingers in the media or Europeans who think all a Democrat has to do is hate Bush to win. To the contrary, these people are conservative, they like Bush, but do they trust the moderate McCain to put him in the White House? It's up to McCain to pursuade them, like I said, despite the Obama hype, it's McCain's to win or lose in reality.