Analysis
Indications point to win by Obama
By Amando Doronila
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:28:00 11/03/2008
Filed Under: US elections, Politics
With the US presidential election just a breath away, Democrat Barack Obama is holding an average lead of 6 percentage points over Republican John McCain, according to Bloomberg. The Obama camp is talking about a landslide win, and McCain is battling to overcome his rival’s momentum in the polls, defiantly playing the underdog role.
McCain has blasted the media’s skeptical assessment of his chances in Tuesday’s election. “The pundits have written us off, just as they’ve done several times before,” he said. “We’re points down, but we’re coming back.”
McCain is fighting back in the face of the Bloomberg report that 10 polls released the past week showed Obama with leads ranging from 3 points in a Fox News Poll to 11 points in a New York Times/CBS News survey.
Those poll results underline the polarization of the conservative segment (represented by Fox News) and the liberal stream (represented by the New York Times).
Bloomberg reports Obama holds an advantage in contested states, including Ohio, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, all of which were won by Republican George W. Bush in 2004. McCain is in close races with Obama in Florida, North Carolina, Indiana and North Dakota.
Those states were won by Bush in 2004 and McCain needs to win them in order to have a chance of gaining the 270 Electoral College votes required to win the presidency. He is fighting an uphill battle.
The odds are such that an Obama victory in just one of the four key states that voted Republican in 2004—Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina—would leave McCain with insurmountable hurdles to winning the election.
Media influence
Nationally, according to Bloomberg, Obama leads McCain 51 percent to 43 percent in a Gallup daily tracking polls of those deemed likely to vote, based on past voting behavior and voting intentions. The Fox poll of likely voters found 47 percent would vote for Obama and 44 percent for McCain if the election were held today.
The New York Times/CBS poll showed 52 percent of likely voters favored Obama while 41 percent supported McCain. These poll results highlighted the issue related to the media influence in creating a bandwagon effect for the Illinois senator.
Obama has enjoyed a largely positive coverage in the media. He has won editorial support from the newspapers at the ratio of three to one. This has led McCain supporters to believe that they had not gotten a fair shake from the media, based on a study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
Ideological polarization
According to the study, comments made by sources and voters on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts over the past two months reflected positively on Obama in 65 percent of cases and in 31 percent of cases with regard to McCain.
ABC’s “World News” had more balance than NBC’s “Nightly News” or the “CBS Evening News,” the study found.
A second study found that McCain’s coverage has been overwhelmingly negative and Obama’s has been more mixed.
Another survey issued last Friday by the Pew Center for the People and the Press showed television news to be the Americans’ main source for campaign news, particularly the cable news networks. Ideological polarization among the media sharpened as Obama stretched his lead in the polls.
Murdoch’s warning
Global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of the pro-McCain Fox News, warned that a win by Obama could worsen the world financial crisis. In an interview with The Weekend Australian, owned by Murdoch’s News Corporation, Murdoch said that if the Democrats implemented protectionist policies it would be “a real setback for globalization.”
He said he did not know whether an Obama administration would carry out all the Democrats’ stated policies, adding that “presidents don’t often behave exactly as the campaign might have suggested.”
But Murdoch warned that an increase in protectionism in the United States, as suggested by some Democrats in Congress, would risk retaliation from China and could threaten world trade.
“For the past three or four years, some Democrats have been threatening to do things like put on extra tariffs (against Chinese imports) if they don’t change their currency,” Murdoch said.
“If it happened, it could set off retaliatory action which would certainly damage the world economy seriously.”
True colors
Murdoch also criticized Obama’s proposed tax policies, which included granting rebates to most US workers. A large percentage of the US population didn’t pay taxes, so how could he give them tax rebates? he said.
“But you can give them a welfare cheque which he has promised—a grant of $500—which will disappear very fast. It’s not going to turn the economy around at all.”
Campaigning in Iowa, McCain showed his true colors as an economic conservative on the ideological rightwing. He attacked Obama’s bid to become the first black president of America, saying that Obama “began his campaign in the liberal-lane of politics and has never left it.”
This attack from the Right was echoed by Peter Wehner, former deputy assistant to President Bush, in a viewpoint comment on BBC News.
Policy contrasts
The comment, titled “The Case against Obama,” said: “If the polls hold, the American people will elect Barack Obama as their 44th president. He is a man of prodigious political talents who exudes grace, equanimity and self-possession. He is unflappable, possesses a first-rate mind, and is capable of inspiring rhetoric. And he would be a very bad choice for president…
“Obama, while exuding centrist style and employing soothing rhetoric, has amassed a record that places him on the extreme left end of our political spectrum, whether the subject is taxes, trade, health care, the size and role of the federal government, the federal courts, missile defense, or virtually any other policy area.”
This puts the closing days of the campaign in the framework of the ideological canvas that defines sharply the policy contrasts of the Democrats and the Republicans as the United States confronts the worst economic crisis to face it since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
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