All eyes on Florida as rivals roll up for final joust

FOCUS SHARPENS ON SWING STATES

You always know when President Barack Obama is in Manhattan because the extra police presence causes mayhem.

He’s nothing if not self-aware. Last Thursday, he joked at the Alfred E Smith Memorial Foundation dinner in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel that in the upcoming election — just two weeks and one day away — New Yorkers will get to choose which candidate they’d rather have bring their city to a standstill.

The huge annual Catholic charity fundraiser, which is a rite of passage for the candidacy of presidential hopefuls every four years, is a white tie affair that raised well over €3m and is named after the first Catholic to ever run for president.

As most people will have heard by now, there were good lines from both candidates, with Mitt Romney possibly edging a points victory overall. However, Obama did make a pertinent observation.

“In less than three weeks,” he told guests, “voters in states like Ohio, Virginia, and Florida will decide this incredibly important election, which begs the question, why are we here?”

Tonight’s third and final debate in Florida will bring both men to one of the eight or nine states where to be a voter elevates you to a position of power that seems absurd to our proportional representation sensibilities.

This is a system which sees to it that a voter in North Dakota or Wyoming has three times more power than a Californian voter.

Thanks to the staunch political leanings of most states, only 20% of the country will have a vote that counts. So every minute of the sojourn in the Big Apple was a minute not spent canvassing in small towns in Iowa or New Hampshire.

Changing demographics have brought Virginia into this select group, while Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan has levelled the playing field in Wisconsin.

Ohio and Florida are the ultimate holy grails, though. Ohio has decided the last 12 elections, and two factors mitigate against Romney in what is generally a conservative state: The improving economy, and a highly motivated Democratic party which can point to a victory for union workers who successfully repealed a ban on collective bargaining one year ago.

Florida is routinely stroppy, with its old, rich conservatives and its young Latino democrats grappling over the 29 electoral college votes which may end up deciding the winning and the losing.

ROMNEY/BIDEN, JUST THE TICKET

Neither candidate wants a repeat of the 2000 debacle, when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost Florida to George Bush in the courts.

Three times in the history of presidential elections, the electoral college system has foiled one candidate or another. Both election teams have lawyers locked and loaded for the doomsday scenario of disputed counts and trumped-up allegations of voter fraud.

It was alarming to be reminded last week that there is a slight (very slight) chance that a Romney presidency could have Joe Biden as its vice-president. Now wouldn’t that be a hoot?

There are a total of 538 electoral votes divided between the 50 states and Washington DC, and that allows the relatively remote possibility of each candidate securing 269 each.

In that case, the House of Representatives would have to pick the president and the Senate would select his deputy. The Republicans control the House and there isn’t much to suggest that that will change next month. The Republicans would have to take back the Democrat-dominated Senate to get full control of the White House.

What’s certain is that this election is going to be too close for a lot of people’s comfort.

THE REST OF THE FIELD

Even though tonight’s debate in Boca Raton will be based around the least favourite topic of Romney and voters alike — foreign policy — it will still infinitely overshadow tomorrow night’s debate between the other election candidates.

With the allegedly retired Larry King moderating, the Free and Equal Elections Foundation has organised for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode and Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party to duke it out for what should be a tiny TV audience.

Eagle-eyed readers will note the absence of Ralph Nader, the most famous and infamous third wheel of past elections. A veteran of five campaigns, his most successful disruption of the status quo came in that aforementioned Florida episode, when the almost 100,000 votes he garnered there became a source of dismay for Gore, who lost the state by just 537 votes.

Third-party candidates don’t get near the official presidential debates unless they have 15% support in polls.

The most prominent of the four is Gary Johnson. He was prevented from entering the Republican primaries and has been a thorn in their side since. Crucially, his presence could become more significant if, as is widely predicted, he eats into Romney’s vote in Ohio.

SO CLOSE AND YET SO FAR

With the budget tight and the country huge, attending last week’s debate in Long Island’s Hofstra University is as close as I’ll get to either candidate or indeed the circus that follows their every move and utterance.

And when I say circus, I really do mean big tent. Anheuser-Busch used their Budweiser dollars to prop up a marquee across the pathway from the college’s gymnasium to help fill the long hours before go-time.

There was free booze and a general air of expectancy.

On and around the basketball hardwood normally home to the Hofstra Pride, the media were housed during the debate, while upstairs in large rooms, were corralled the DC politicians and state governors who were there to spin how their candidates fared.

Don’t get me wrong, Spin Alley was memorable. That’s the free-for-all mixed zone to which every journalist and eager-to-please politician flocks once the debate is finished.

But the Democrats didn’t wait for the debate to finish. With 10 minutes still to go, political heavyweights such as John Kerry and Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod wrongfooted the Republicans and began the easy work of convincing the press that their guy had won.

It will be interesting to find out how early the foot soldiers mobilise tonight.