Campaigning for the White House
The American presidential election is probably one of the most interesting events that reappear every four years. The world's largest power this year will go to polls on November 6 to either reelect the incumbent Barack H. Obama (51) or elect his challenger Willard Mitt Romney (65, former governor of Massachusetts) as the new occupant of the White House.
It is a peculiar and complex indirect election process. Citizens cast ballots for a list of 538 members of the Electoral College (EC), which in turn directly elects the president. The electors are distributed across the 50 states in proportion to their population size. Normally, all the EC members of a state vote for any one candidate. Most of the states align themselves as either Democrat or Republican supporters, leaving some states known as "battleground" or "swing" states, where the voters are undecided.
A candidate must receive a simple majority of EC votes (i.e. at least 270) to win the presidency. The winner's running mate is elected as vice-president.
Campaigning is all about how much a candidate can spend. Television advertisements, websites and the social media have gone wild on the campaign. Some of these are extremely hilarious while some are quite vulgar. Detractors are also spending money to trivialising and rubbishing their opponents. In a way it is show business of another kind during an election year.
Interestingly, a whole new lexicon is used during such campaigns. For instance, "binders full of women" (Romney -- while trying to prove that he was not gender biased); "Obamaloney;"
"Romney Hood" (Obama criticised Romney's tax proposals -- saying he stole money from the poor to give to the rich); "Romnesia" (Obama fused Romney's name with amnesia). TV shows are unsparing in showing cartoons, jokes and caricatures of the candidates almost every day.
This time, the total campaign cost, for both candidates, is estimated to be over $ 2.5 billion. All this money came from "fund raising" campaigns by the candidates. Experts say that there is a direct link between the money spent on campaigning and the votes a candidate eventually musters. Many consider that the amount of money spent on election campaigns indicates strength and health of American democracy. A candidate unable to advertise is out of the race.
The most interesting part of this election campaign was the four debates organised by the "Commission of Presidential Debates" -- three for the presidential candidates and one for the vice-presidential candidates. These televised debates helped US voters to understand the policies and programmes of the two candidates and where each stands on important issues.
Candidates come well prepared with facts and figures to rebut everything the other says. Advisers of candidates make sure they rehearse each and every word and sentence before facing the TV cameras. Now that the debates are over -- there is another debate going on in the media and social network on who outsmarted whom.
Obama, realising that he had fallen behind in the first debate, came back aggressively in the second one. The tone, mannerism and style of the second debate were most interesting. The theme of the second confrontation was the state of the US economy. Different aspects of the economy -- tax, unemployment, health care, equal opportunity for women, budget deficit, US indebtedness, etc -- were vigorously debated by the two candidates. To many, the debate appeared theatrical, confrontational and at times uncivil as the two men exchanged verbal blows.
Soon after the debates the media checked on the facts and figures the two candidates exchanged. Some of these were correct while some were half-truths. Mitt Romney repeatedly accused Obama for failing to turn around the economy. Obama criticised Romney saying that his economic policies did not add up. America, he said, was slowly and surely coming out of the mess created by his Republican predecessor, indirectly criticising George Bush.
Economists explained that neither candidate was correct in his assertions on the economy. Clearly, neither Obama, a Harvard law graduate, nor Romney, a Harvard business graduate, knows much about economics.
The third debate dwelt on US foreign policy. This verbal duel was much more civilised. A large part of the debate was spent on the happenings in the Middle East. One issue that came out strikingly clearly is that neither of these two men was ready to compromise on the security of Israel. On Syria, Romney appeared to have made a gaffe when he mentioned that for Iran, Syria was the only source to the sea. That was a deplorable lack of knowledge of geography.
On most issues the debate reflected the bipartisan nature of US foreign policy. Neither candidate seemed to understand or appreciate the political and social upheaval that countries of the Middle East were going through. Neither was ready to admit that US double standards were largely responsible for the violent anti-American sentiments in the Middle East.
Romney, in all the three debates, kept repeating that US needed a strong president to lead the world. Clearly that was rhetorical. He wants to build a strong economy, but was not able to tell how it could be achieved. During the debates Obama seemed to be wittier, more knowledgeable, and intellectually superior to his challenger.
With a few days left before the voters go to elect the EC the opinion polls show that the two candidates are in a tight race, with Obama having a wafer thin margin over Romney.
Voters actually make their choice based on some key "fundamentals" -- the economy being the most important one. In fact, they will vote for the less bad candidate. This time around, it appears that the impact of Hurricane Sandy, may also play a role in determining who will win the White House.
Opinion polls will continue to sway in opposite directions until November 6 -- D-Day. As of now it is too close to make a call.
The writer is a former Ambassador and Secretary.
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