US presidential campaign 2008
Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal | Saturday, 23 August 2008
In the background of the long, historic US-led terror wars in Afghanistan and Iraq killing thousands of innocent Muslims since the Sept 11 event, US is undergoing a long poll campaign season to elect a new president to take office in 2009. With primaries coming to an end, the US voters are keenly watching the outcome of the ensuing debates as the campaigns for presidential finals in November election by Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain have begun. Barack Obama has started his journey from Virginia towards the White House when another Democratic Party candidate Hilary Clinton surrendered from the race on June 7 after a lot of tussle. McCain clinched the Republican race in March. The two Democrats traded primary victories during the month but Obama continued to build his delegate advantage. He secured the nomination June 3.Obama has conducted campaign successfully in an unprecedented primary season that built grassroots infrastructure in all 50 states of the United States of America. Republican McCain began the battle by attacking Senator Obama, portraying him as an inexperienced, out of touch liberal who lacks courage to take an unpopular stand.
Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama would be the first black U.S. president, if elected. Obama, an Illinois senator, has been intent on trying to unify the party ahead of the November election after a bitter, 16-month struggle between the candidates to become the Democratic standard-bearer. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will join Barack Obama on the campaign trail on June 27 as Obama and Clinton will appear together for the first time since Obama emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee on June 3. Clinton campaigned actively through the last Democratic primaries on June 3 before succumbing to Obama and is expected to have even greater debt at the end of this month. Earlier this week, Obama included several high-profile supporters of Clinton, such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and retired Gen. Wesley Clark in meetings to advise him on national security.
Obama, born to a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, has cast himself as a candidate who can bridge divides within the country, including those involving race. "We know the strategy because they've already shown their cards. Ultimately, I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn't moved us forward. That old stuff just divides us," he said. It has been rare for him to bring up the topic during his presidential bid. In March he gave a widely praised speech on the subject after receiving criticism over racially charged comments by his long-time pastor.
McCain and Obama are trying to bring in as many ladies as possible into the campaign squads to boost the poll prospects. After the departure of "the most famous woman in the country, if not the world" Hillary Rodham Clinton from the presidential race, now Democratic party is busy finding right ladies to the right places to boost the final election campaign. "There were important pieces to put in place that were put on hold until it was clear that Sen. Obama was the nominee," she said. "Everything is a go, and they really are moving to fill out their campaign." After taking primary season criticism over the number of women in its upper ranks, the campaign of Barack Obama has significantly ramped up its hiring of women in senior staff positions.
Barack Obama said he would concentrate on real issues facing the country, rather than on the irrelevant and the nonessential. In Jacksonville, Florida on 20 June Obama said he slammed republican low politics saying that he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him. "It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy", Obama adds that the Republicans would try to make American voters afraid, "He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?" He said he was also set for Republicans to say "he's got a feisty wife," in trying to attack his wife Michelle.
Economy and energy policy: Oil price rise has caught the prime attention of the presidential hopefuls, followed security related issues. McCain and Obama have clashed sharply on economic and security issues in the campaign's early stages. Obama has tried to link McCain to the policies of unpopular President George W. Bush and McCain has questioned Obama's judgment and experience. During the recent campaign the presidential hopefuls have focused on energy and economic issues to score a point over the other, while Obama has detailed the fundraising related issue and general financial health of his Democratic party.
Promising about more job creations, Obama said he would invest $150 billion over the next 10 years to create green jobs, particularly in the automotive industry and to improve the electricity grid so people can drive plug-in hybrid vehicles. Now as then, Obama says the proposals are nonsense because they won't help consumers hurting now. Earlier, in Chicago, Obama said McCain's proposal "makes absolutely no sense at all" and won't lower gas prices until 2030. "Even then you're looking at cents on a gallon of gas," Obama told Democratic governors at a meeting in his hometown. "Who knows 22 years from now, what would gas be at the pace that we're going right now?"
Obama discussed the economy with the 16 Democratic governors. They told him how people in their states are suffering, from high energy and food costs, loss of manufacturing jobs and the housing slump. "There is a deep recession and frankly I believe it's gaining momentum," said New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, Obama said he would work with them on policies that would help, including a plan to spend billions in taxpayer dollars to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects that could create jobs and improve transportation routes.
Both Obama and McCain are navigating the tricky political terrain around energy policy as rising gas prices infuriate voters who are largely focused on pocketbook issues in a shaky economy. In announcing his support of lifting the moratorium, McCain said that with gas prices rising and the country chronically dependent on foreign oil, his proposal would "be very helpful in the short term resolving our energy crisis." With gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use," McCain said in a speech this week. His remarks were aimed at working-class voters, but his proposal no doubt won over big oil companies while infuriating environmentalists.
Obama, for his part, is using an argument similar to what he did during the Democratic primary season when rival Hillary Rodham Clinton followed McCain in calling for a summertime holiday from the federal gas tax. Obama dismissed rival John McCain's proposal to allow offshore drilling as an election-year conversion, arguing that it will not lower gas prices for families "this year, next year, five years from now." The Democratic nominee pledged to keep in place the federal government's 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling, and criticized McCain on changing his position on the matter. In McCain's 2000 campaign, the Republican said he favoured the moratorium. Last week, he said he supports lifting it to give states the option to drill, and cited as a reason alleviating the pressure on consumers facing high gas prices. McCain responded that Obama is rejecting measures needed to lower gas prices: "The American people cannot afford Barack Obama's do-nothing, out-of-touch energy policy".
Obama asserted that opening up the U.S. coastline to oil exploration would not give Americans any short-term appreciable savings. "John McCain's proposal, George Bush's proposal, to drill offshore here in Florida and other places would not provide families any relief this year, next year, five years from now," Senator Obama said from the banks of the St. Johns River, "we can't drill our way out of the problems we're facing," he said tapping the podium for emphasis. Offshore drilling is not popular in many - if any - coastal states, particularly Florida, the presidential swing state that decided the 2000 election and where McCain is favoured and Obama is looking to gain ground.
Notorious fund-raising Politics n the US democracy is a business too, where money-making dominates the policies of every government. Fund-raising as an immoral practice has perfected the art of democratic corruption as well. Democrat Obama raised $22 million in May for his presidential campaign, his weakest fundraising month this year, and ended the month with $43 million cash on hand, while former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton sank deeper in debt. Obama, who has been the fundraising leader throughout the presidential contest, entered June on virtually the same financial footing as Republican rival John McCain - a level of parity that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago.
Obama reported spending $26.6 million in May. His heaviest spending was on advertising - he spent more than $4 million buying time for television commercials. Clinton reported total disbursements of $19.2 million for the month. Many of her loyal donors have already contributed the maximum to her campaign, so she needs some new sources of money. That's where Obama comes in - his donors help her out, her donors help him. "It's far more productive for Obama to have Hillary 100 percent focused and engaged on campaigning and raising money for him in the fall rather than having to do fundraisers at the same time to retire her debt," said a Clinton national finance chairman. Details of the candidates' May fundraising, in reports to the Federal Election Commission, came a day after Obama announced he would become the first major party candidate to forgo public financing in the general election. Of Obama's cash on hand, $10 million is available only for the general election, leaving him with about $33 million to use between now and the party conventions in late summer. Obama reported debts of $304,000; McCain had debts of $1.3 million. . In a news conference, Obama defended his decision to go outside the public financing system. Clinton and Obama will meet with her top fundraisers next week in Washington, then both will campaign together.
Obama's decision to forgo public money permits him to use leftover primary money in the general election and gives greater significance to his efforts to capitalize on Clinton's support for the general election. Her donors would be a rich vein to tap. Obama said he is expecting McCain to have significant help from the Republican Party and from outside groups. So far, though, few conservative outside groups have stepped into the presidential election and those that have spent little money.
Hillary Clinton, who bowed out of the Democratic contest on June 7, reported a $22.5 million debt at the end of May, more than half of which came from personal loans to her presidential campaign. The former first lady lent her campaign nearly $2.2 million during the month, bringing her total personal investment in the campaign to $12.175 million. She had $3.4 million cash on hand left for primary spending. She also had more than $23 million for the general election, money her campaign cannot use to pay off her debts.
McCain has said he will accept the public funds, which will limit him to spending about $85 million from September until Election Day in November. McCain raised $21 million in May and ended the month with $31.6 million in the bank.
Opinion poll: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has opened up a double-digit lead over Republican John McCain two weeks after he clinched the nomination, a new poll published showed. The nationwide poll conducted showed Obama leading McCain by a margin of 51-36 per cent, indicating that he might have got a bounce from his recent primary victory over Hillary Clinton. Obama was tied at 46 percent with McCain in a previous Newsweek poll completed in late May, when he was still battling Clinton for the nomination, Newsweek said. Obama's edge in the latest poll is larger than in other recent surveys. A Reuters/Zogby poll released found Obama had a 5-point lead. Obama triumphed in early June in a gruelling five-month Democratic nomination fight with Clinton.
Only 14 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country, and that they see Obama as the preferred agent of "change" by a margin of 51 percent to 27 percent and Obama is doing better at this point in the race than Democratic predecessors Sen. John Kerry and Vice President Al Gore, who both ended up losing their bid for the White House.
An observation: As it stands, Obama is in an advantageous position being the winner of the strong Democratic candidate Mrs Clinton whom the global media projected as the most possible candidate to emerge to secure the Democratic nomination. But that does not necessarily mean Obama would outsmart McCain now in the forthcoming campaigns. Obama has consistently been campaigning with the slogan of change of the past and turned a new chapter in politics in Washington DC since the beginning of the primary season. Senator Obama has constantly portrayed McCain as a third term of President Bush whose approval ratings is at historic low as of now. In the face of the US-led terror wars in Mideast, talk of change has appealed to US voters.
In the name of democracy, US politics has permitted the notorious fundraising practices that would ultimately influence the policy decisions of the ruling dispensation as those who contributed liberally during the campaign have a say in governmental decisions when the new government takes charge. Since the president has already taken money as bribe in advance during the campaign, he is "duty bound" to help them when in power and that has being happening in the White House with plenty of lobbyists infesting the corroders of Washington power. Needless to say, the fundraising is an evil practice directly linked to the process of corruption in the contemporary US society.
In this sense, the eventual outcome of the presidential race does not make much of a difference either to USA or the world, since both the presidential candidates behave similarly, almost identically in matters of national and international importance and when deciding a course of domestic or foreign policy action.
The moot question now is if Obama makes any major departure from his own stand on US-led terror wars in Middle East and if demands that the troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq and no more troops to Mideast; and if plays creative politics by asking the Pentagon not to plan any future invasion just for fancy on vague pretexts and if US would avert a deadly war with Iran. McCain has made his position crystal clear that the terror wars started by President Bush in Islamic world would continue until the US achieves its global target. And that McCain would be guided by the Pentagon and Neocons in his domestic as well as foreign policy.
The writer is a researcher in
international relations
Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama would be the first black U.S. president, if elected. Obama, an Illinois senator, has been intent on trying to unify the party ahead of the November election after a bitter, 16-month struggle between the candidates to become the Democratic standard-bearer. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will join Barack Obama on the campaign trail on June 27 as Obama and Clinton will appear together for the first time since Obama emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee on June 3. Clinton campaigned actively through the last Democratic primaries on June 3 before succumbing to Obama and is expected to have even greater debt at the end of this month. Earlier this week, Obama included several high-profile supporters of Clinton, such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and retired Gen. Wesley Clark in meetings to advise him on national security.
Obama, born to a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, has cast himself as a candidate who can bridge divides within the country, including those involving race. "We know the strategy because they've already shown their cards. Ultimately, I think the American people recognize that old stuff hasn't moved us forward. That old stuff just divides us," he said. It has been rare for him to bring up the topic during his presidential bid. In March he gave a widely praised speech on the subject after receiving criticism over racially charged comments by his long-time pastor.
McCain and Obama are trying to bring in as many ladies as possible into the campaign squads to boost the poll prospects. After the departure of "the most famous woman in the country, if not the world" Hillary Rodham Clinton from the presidential race, now Democratic party is busy finding right ladies to the right places to boost the final election campaign. "There were important pieces to put in place that were put on hold until it was clear that Sen. Obama was the nominee," she said. "Everything is a go, and they really are moving to fill out their campaign." After taking primary season criticism over the number of women in its upper ranks, the campaign of Barack Obama has significantly ramped up its hiring of women in senior staff positions.
Barack Obama said he would concentrate on real issues facing the country, rather than on the irrelevant and the nonessential. In Jacksonville, Florida on 20 June Obama said he slammed republican low politics saying that he expects Republicans to highlight the fact that he is black as part of an effort to make voters afraid of him. "It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy", Obama adds that the Republicans would try to make American voters afraid, "He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?" He said he was also set for Republicans to say "he's got a feisty wife," in trying to attack his wife Michelle.
Economy and energy policy: Oil price rise has caught the prime attention of the presidential hopefuls, followed security related issues. McCain and Obama have clashed sharply on economic and security issues in the campaign's early stages. Obama has tried to link McCain to the policies of unpopular President George W. Bush and McCain has questioned Obama's judgment and experience. During the recent campaign the presidential hopefuls have focused on energy and economic issues to score a point over the other, while Obama has detailed the fundraising related issue and general financial health of his Democratic party.
Promising about more job creations, Obama said he would invest $150 billion over the next 10 years to create green jobs, particularly in the automotive industry and to improve the electricity grid so people can drive plug-in hybrid vehicles. Now as then, Obama says the proposals are nonsense because they won't help consumers hurting now. Earlier, in Chicago, Obama said McCain's proposal "makes absolutely no sense at all" and won't lower gas prices until 2030. "Even then you're looking at cents on a gallon of gas," Obama told Democratic governors at a meeting in his hometown. "Who knows 22 years from now, what would gas be at the pace that we're going right now?"
Obama discussed the economy with the 16 Democratic governors. They told him how people in their states are suffering, from high energy and food costs, loss of manufacturing jobs and the housing slump. "There is a deep recession and frankly I believe it's gaining momentum," said New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, Obama said he would work with them on policies that would help, including a plan to spend billions in taxpayer dollars to build roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects that could create jobs and improve transportation routes.
Both Obama and McCain are navigating the tricky political terrain around energy policy as rising gas prices infuriate voters who are largely focused on pocketbook issues in a shaky economy. In announcing his support of lifting the moratorium, McCain said that with gas prices rising and the country chronically dependent on foreign oil, his proposal would "be very helpful in the short term resolving our energy crisis." With gasoline running at more than four bucks a gallon, many do not have the luxury of waiting on the far-off plans of futurists and politicians. And I believe it is time for the federal government to lift these restrictions and to put our own reserves to use," McCain said in a speech this week. His remarks were aimed at working-class voters, but his proposal no doubt won over big oil companies while infuriating environmentalists.
Obama, for his part, is using an argument similar to what he did during the Democratic primary season when rival Hillary Rodham Clinton followed McCain in calling for a summertime holiday from the federal gas tax. Obama dismissed rival John McCain's proposal to allow offshore drilling as an election-year conversion, arguing that it will not lower gas prices for families "this year, next year, five years from now." The Democratic nominee pledged to keep in place the federal government's 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling, and criticized McCain on changing his position on the matter. In McCain's 2000 campaign, the Republican said he favoured the moratorium. Last week, he said he supports lifting it to give states the option to drill, and cited as a reason alleviating the pressure on consumers facing high gas prices. McCain responded that Obama is rejecting measures needed to lower gas prices: "The American people cannot afford Barack Obama's do-nothing, out-of-touch energy policy".
Obama asserted that opening up the U.S. coastline to oil exploration would not give Americans any short-term appreciable savings. "John McCain's proposal, George Bush's proposal, to drill offshore here in Florida and other places would not provide families any relief this year, next year, five years from now," Senator Obama said from the banks of the St. Johns River, "we can't drill our way out of the problems we're facing," he said tapping the podium for emphasis. Offshore drilling is not popular in many - if any - coastal states, particularly Florida, the presidential swing state that decided the 2000 election and where McCain is favoured and Obama is looking to gain ground.
Notorious fund-raising Politics n the US democracy is a business too, where money-making dominates the policies of every government. Fund-raising as an immoral practice has perfected the art of democratic corruption as well. Democrat Obama raised $22 million in May for his presidential campaign, his weakest fundraising month this year, and ended the month with $43 million cash on hand, while former rival Hillary Rodham Clinton sank deeper in debt. Obama, who has been the fundraising leader throughout the presidential contest, entered June on virtually the same financial footing as Republican rival John McCain - a level of parity that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago.
Obama reported spending $26.6 million in May. His heaviest spending was on advertising - he spent more than $4 million buying time for television commercials. Clinton reported total disbursements of $19.2 million for the month. Many of her loyal donors have already contributed the maximum to her campaign, so she needs some new sources of money. That's where Obama comes in - his donors help her out, her donors help him. "It's far more productive for Obama to have Hillary 100 percent focused and engaged on campaigning and raising money for him in the fall rather than having to do fundraisers at the same time to retire her debt," said a Clinton national finance chairman. Details of the candidates' May fundraising, in reports to the Federal Election Commission, came a day after Obama announced he would become the first major party candidate to forgo public financing in the general election. Of Obama's cash on hand, $10 million is available only for the general election, leaving him with about $33 million to use between now and the party conventions in late summer. Obama reported debts of $304,000; McCain had debts of $1.3 million. . In a news conference, Obama defended his decision to go outside the public financing system. Clinton and Obama will meet with her top fundraisers next week in Washington, then both will campaign together.
Obama's decision to forgo public money permits him to use leftover primary money in the general election and gives greater significance to his efforts to capitalize on Clinton's support for the general election. Her donors would be a rich vein to tap. Obama said he is expecting McCain to have significant help from the Republican Party and from outside groups. So far, though, few conservative outside groups have stepped into the presidential election and those that have spent little money.
Hillary Clinton, who bowed out of the Democratic contest on June 7, reported a $22.5 million debt at the end of May, more than half of which came from personal loans to her presidential campaign. The former first lady lent her campaign nearly $2.2 million during the month, bringing her total personal investment in the campaign to $12.175 million. She had $3.4 million cash on hand left for primary spending. She also had more than $23 million for the general election, money her campaign cannot use to pay off her debts.
McCain has said he will accept the public funds, which will limit him to spending about $85 million from September until Election Day in November. McCain raised $21 million in May and ended the month with $31.6 million in the bank.
Opinion poll: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has opened up a double-digit lead over Republican John McCain two weeks after he clinched the nomination, a new poll published showed. The nationwide poll conducted showed Obama leading McCain by a margin of 51-36 per cent, indicating that he might have got a bounce from his recent primary victory over Hillary Clinton. Obama was tied at 46 percent with McCain in a previous Newsweek poll completed in late May, when he was still battling Clinton for the nomination, Newsweek said. Obama's edge in the latest poll is larger than in other recent surveys. A Reuters/Zogby poll released found Obama had a 5-point lead. Obama triumphed in early June in a gruelling five-month Democratic nomination fight with Clinton.
Only 14 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country, and that they see Obama as the preferred agent of "change" by a margin of 51 percent to 27 percent and Obama is doing better at this point in the race than Democratic predecessors Sen. John Kerry and Vice President Al Gore, who both ended up losing their bid for the White House.
An observation: As it stands, Obama is in an advantageous position being the winner of the strong Democratic candidate Mrs Clinton whom the global media projected as the most possible candidate to emerge to secure the Democratic nomination. But that does not necessarily mean Obama would outsmart McCain now in the forthcoming campaigns. Obama has consistently been campaigning with the slogan of change of the past and turned a new chapter in politics in Washington DC since the beginning of the primary season. Senator Obama has constantly portrayed McCain as a third term of President Bush whose approval ratings is at historic low as of now. In the face of the US-led terror wars in Mideast, talk of change has appealed to US voters.
In the name of democracy, US politics has permitted the notorious fundraising practices that would ultimately influence the policy decisions of the ruling dispensation as those who contributed liberally during the campaign have a say in governmental decisions when the new government takes charge. Since the president has already taken money as bribe in advance during the campaign, he is "duty bound" to help them when in power and that has being happening in the White House with plenty of lobbyists infesting the corroders of Washington power. Needless to say, the fundraising is an evil practice directly linked to the process of corruption in the contemporary US society.
In this sense, the eventual outcome of the presidential race does not make much of a difference either to USA or the world, since both the presidential candidates behave similarly, almost identically in matters of national and international importance and when deciding a course of domestic or foreign policy action.
The moot question now is if Obama makes any major departure from his own stand on US-led terror wars in Middle East and if demands that the troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq and no more troops to Mideast; and if plays creative politics by asking the Pentagon not to plan any future invasion just for fancy on vague pretexts and if US would avert a deadly war with Iran. McCain has made his position crystal clear that the terror wars started by President Bush in Islamic world would continue until the US achieves its global target. And that McCain would be guided by the Pentagon and Neocons in his domestic as well as foreign policy.
The writer is a researcher in
international relations