US presidential election - Obama and McCain on the last lap

AS ONE great spectacle closed yesterday another moved inexorably towards its climax in November.

One four-year cycle concluded in Beijing, but the battle to lead another very different cycle of the same duration took on a new, sharpened impetus.

That the nomination of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden as America’s Democratic vice-presidential candidate, and the opening of the final and decisive battles in America’s presidential election campaign, may be less significant than the closing ceremony of the Olympics is just one more indication of the new, powerful place China has come to occupy in the world.