America’s election - Polls suggest Obama is unbeatable

IN LESS than two weeks the world will know who is to be the next president of the United States, though it seems improbable that Barrack Obama will not be named as the chosen one.

No matter how unwise or premature it might be to put aside the possibility of a McCain win, it is hard to argue that a Republican victory can be built on anything other than the baser instincts of Americans and irrational fears inherited from the darkest moments of their past.

Eight years of Republican rule have done great harm to America’s worldwide image. President Bush has done more than nearly all of his predecessors to change the relationship between America and the rest of the world.

The land of the free, the home of the brave has become the land of Guantanamo and legalised torture. It seems to have turned its back on the principles that made it such a powerful, redeeming light in the darkest days of the last century.

The greatest democracy, which rescued Europe from catastrophe twice in 100 years, is today the source of the financial cancer — sub-prime lending — that is destroying our economic and fiscal structures.

America’s opposition to environmental reform has won it few friends either. The chants of “drill, drill, drill” heard at so many Republican rallies suggest an indifference to climate change that causes great unease around the world.

Voter polls, though they change by the hour, if not the minute, suggest that a sufficient number of Americans are either enlivened by the prospect of a President Obama, or resolved to remove the Republicans from the White House.

Obama has convinced them that he offers the prospect of change; that he offers the possibility of a renewed hope in the West’s capacity to rebuild its economies and sustain itself as the First World.

Though only time will tell if Obama can turn his animated, powerful, moving rhetoric into the profound change he has promised. There have not been too many moments in the last century when the prospect of positive change — optimism — was such a powerful currency. Even the prospect of hope may be enough to get Obama elected.

A poll published by Reuters yesterday showed that Obama leads McCain by 51% to 41%. Obama had a 12-point lead on Thursday.

Obama, 47, continues to win support from women and independent voters, two groups expected to play pivotal roles in next month’s election. Among independents, the Illinois senator is ahead by 56% to 30%, while women back Obama by a 20-point margin, 58% to 38%.

These margins, so close to polling day, suggest that the American electorate has had more than enough of the rancid policies of President Bush and his inner circle.

In many ways this presidential race became and an unequal contest as soon as Senator Obama defeated Hillary Clinton. No matter what his policies John McCain was burdened by his age — he is 72 — and his health. His selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate showed poor judgement and all but made him unelectable. She is out of her depth, and the prospect of her becoming president in any circumstances is deeply worrying.

In any event we must wait for the election result, but the prospect of an old friend returning to the values that made us friends in the first place is enough for the moment.