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US election: fancy a beer?
9th August 2008
If you have not been looking at the developments in the race for the White House in microscopic detail over the summer break, today’s Guardian news section contains a useful overview of the post primary campaign. And there’s a bit of analysis from me in this post as well
Getting up to speed
If you expected the contest to be a cakewalk for the Democratic nominee, think again. Despite a number of favourable circumstances for Barack Obama, the race is a lot tighter than many predicted.
From my perspective it seems that for a large number of American voters, contests for the presidency come down to the ‘who would you like to have a beer with?’ test, particularly when policy differences between the candidates are difficult to spot. And at the moment, John McCain appears to be connecting a lot better than Obama with those that don’t have strong party leanings one way or the other. If Obama can’t convince the undecideds that he would be a good companion to prop up the bar with, then he can add his name to the long list of Democrats that have managed to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
In summary:
‘A media and public backlash in the US against Barack Obama was almost inevitable given the media exposure he has enjoyed so far.
In spite of the favourable coverage he received for his trip last month to the Middle East and Europe, there has been no “bounce” for him in the polls.
Obama enjoys a lead over McCain of only about 3-4%, which is worrying Democrats.
A Pew Research poll released on Wednesday found 48% of respondents felt they had been hearing too much about Obama, compared with only 26% for McCain.
A recent analysis suggests McCain gained parity of media exposure with Obama in the last fortnight, for the first time in months.
McCain has enjoyed some success with a negative campaign portraying Obama as celebrity driven.
Two new anti-Obama books were among the bestsellers on Amazon.com’s top 20 list on Tuesday.’