The eagerly anticipated text message arrived on millions of mobile phones
yesterday at 3am. With it, many Americans who had registered to be updated
with details of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign will have been woken to
the news that Joe Biden, the Delaware senator, will be his running mate on
the Democratic party’s ticket.
Many of them will have got the joke. In the brutal primaries, Hillary
Clinton’s most effective ad showed a phone ringing at 3 am - and asked who
Americans would trust to answer it in the Oval Office. In picking Biden at
3am, Obama was telling the world that he had chosen a No 2 able to take over
in a crisis.
The announcement was merely the latest dramatic act in what has already been a
draining, historic, exhilarating nine months of frantic campaigning. Yet the
most important thing dawning on observers of the election, even those who
have been examining it under a microscope for months, is that the real
campaign starts now - and no one has a clue what is going to happen.
Stop analysing the polls of the past month indicating a surge by John McCain,
the Republican nominee. If you looked at the polls at this point in the last
two election cycles, you would see they were poised for real movement only
now. This, after all, is when the mass of American voters tune in.
Already there are signs that the intensity of the campaigning has increased
over the summer. Obama made his first move against McCain six weeks ago with
his trip to the Middle East and Europe. It cemented his commander-in-chief
potential, especially as the Iraqi government used the opportunity to
endorse a US timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, Obama’s long-held position.
Obama’s hugely successful speech in Berlin, however, gave the McCain camp an
opening for a barrage of negative adverts featuring Paris Hilton, among
others, that lampooned Obama as an empty celebrity.
Then came lucky pay dirt: while Obama was on holiday, Russia invaded Georgia
and McCain hogged the airwaves, reacting as if he were a hyperactive but
knowledgeable president. His numbers jumped.
But the wheel turned again as he made a hilarious gaffe last week. When asked
how many homes he owned, McCain stammered that he could not remember. The
Democrats had a field day - it turns out that he has at least seven - and
Obama showed the glint of steel that makes him a more lethal candidate than
John Kerry, who stood against George W Bush four years ago.
Television adverts cascaded on top of YouTube videos, mocking McCain for being
that rich and property-careless in an economy where hundreds of thousands of
Americans are faced with the loss of their homes. Obama, meanwhile, kept the
country on tenter-hooks by withholding until the last minute his choice of
Biden as his running mate.
The campaigning has been more intense, and dirtier, than at this point in
previous elections. And the sense of drama will only increase.
How do you predict the reaction to Thursday night when the first black nominee
for president from a leading party gives his acceptance speech in front of
nearly 75,000 people in a Den-ver sports stadium, 45 years to the day since
Martin Luther King’s historic “I have a dream” speech? Does the pugnacious
McCain, the former Vietnam prisoner of war, have a plan to counteract the
spectacle?
This is not like most British elections, where party loyalties and messages
have been honed for years and their leaders are well established. McCain has
led the Republicans for just three months (and was the equivalent of a
cranky back-bencher and failed leadership challenger before that). Obama has
been the Democratic leader for a mere two months and was elected to the
Senate only four years ago.
This is about two very different men and the American people’s relationship
with each. The final run-off, especially after the gruelling primaries, has
yet to take shape in people’s minds and the contrast between the candidates
is still fresh. Now is when it gets really interesting.
WHEN you take a good, long, as-fresh-as-you-can look at the two men on stage,
it is not that huge a mystery why the race has been within a few percentage
points since Obama finally wrested the nomination from the Clinton dynasty.
McCain and Obama are two evenly matched, larger-than-life figures with
riveting biographies, charisma and a capacity to appeal beyond the members
of their own parties. Of course the public is evenly divided about them.
In this face-off - between perhaps the most talented duo to joust for the
title since Kennedy and Nixon in 1960 - America sees parts of itself, past
and future, and finds it understandably difficult to make a choice just yet.
Obama’s advantages are no secret. After a long period of Republican-dominated
governance, the public is ready for change. Few dispute that his party will
expand its majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate
(in that sense, a large part of this election has already been decided –
America is headed left). The economy is stuttering. Large numbers of
homeowners have seen the value of their properties slide, while the price of
petrol and food has soared. In this climate the incumbent president’s party
tends to suffer.
The degree to which Obama breaks the mould of candidates is hard to overstate,
however. No black man has ever made it this far in American history, or even
close. In the year Obama was born, his parents’ interracial marriage would
have been illegal in many states. Obama comes from Hawaii, whence no
previous president has hailed. He is a first-term senator whose entire
candidacy rests on opposition to a war that has recently gone from worse to
bad. He has the funniest name of any presidential candidate in history. And
yet he can bring 200,000 Germans onto the streets of Berlin before he has
even become president - and he was able to take on and outwit the biggest
machine in American party politics, the Clintons.
Whatever else he is, he is not a familiar trope. It is no surprise that
Americans have taken their time to get his measure - and many still have not.
Obama’s Americanness, however, is deep, for all the aspersions of otherness
thrown at him. His DNA combines two of the more indelible American
identities: heartland grit and immigrant dreams. Half his family has roots
in Kansas, the heart of the heartland. His largely absent father came from a
distant place, Kenya, and Obama grew up in, among other places, Indonesia.
These two identities place him at the centre of a churning, yet
traditionally immigrant country.
His eclectic Americanness reveals itself elsewhere as well.
He is at home in the rabble-rousing church of his former pastor Jeremiah
Wright and yet he is also in his element at the University of Chicago and
Harvard Law School. He plays basketball and can write like a professional
novelist. He is a product of modern Chicago and premodern Indonesia - and
able to note similarities in each.
It is hard to think of a man with this story existing in any other country,
let alone being in a position, in his mid-forties, to become the president
of it. In the context of America, though, the strangeness of Obama is not so
strange. It is imbued with the possibility of self-reinvention. Nothing is
more American than that. THE raw appeal of McCain as a candidate, on the
other hand, is rooted in another form of Americanness. It is an older form
but just as potent. McCain draws on the Scots-Irish belligerence and sense
of honour that have fuelled America for centuries. A military man through
and through, his uniformed pedigree goes back generations to the war of
independence. McCain represents tradition in this sense, a man whose
instinctive solidarity with Britain, for example, is second nature to him.
Psychologically, he is both a passionate servant of what he regards as
national honour - and yet he is also an indefatigable rebel. He has rarely
met an institution that he does not want to both uphold and to undercut. He
broke every rule in the Naval Academy and yet it would be hard to express
the love the man obviously has for the US armed services. He is a revered
senator and shrewd legislator, but almost all his Senate colleagues have
been at the wrong end of a barrage of expletives at one time or other.
His Vietnam war career was undistinguished. He was involved in a dreadful
accident on an aircraft carrier and then got shot down early in combat. But
when he was in the worst position imaginable - captured, tortured, held for
years in a hellish prison - his sense of duty never wavered.
His father, by that time, was the commander of all US forces in the Vietnam
theatre and McCain could have secured early release. The single,
unimpeachable act of heroism that set him apart from every other PoW was his
refusal to be freed ahead of his fellow soldiers. He was all-too-human in
every other way: cracking under torture, giving false confessions to serve
Vietnamese propaganda and attempting suicide because of the shame he felt
for submitting. But beneath his incompetence and insolence there was a
character and sense of duty worth not just taking seriously, but honouring.
McCain is a far more mercurial, emotional and volatile character than Obama.
Despite being a generation older - he will be 72 on Friday - he is
temperamentally much younger than his rival. There is a lot of Churchill in
McCain: the melodrama and the sanctimony, the mawkishness and the sincerity,
the big heart and sometimes faulty judgment.
In the days and weeks after 9/11, McCain was always on television, rallying
the nation, almost relishing the chance to prove his staying power as others
peeled away. When you hear him today talking of the great sacrifice of the
surge and the genius of General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq,
and the need to stay there indefinitely and to launch a surge in
Afghanistan, you see him where he wants to be: alone, prescient, courageous.
Now recall Obama’s response to 9/11. He supported the war in Afghanistan but
opposed the Iraq war. He opposed it on cerebral grounds and poured oil on
choppy waters. While McCain was already in the hyperventilating vanguard of
the neoconservative project (and I was right there with him), Obama was
delivering the following measured caveats: “I don’t oppose all wars . . .
What I am opposed to is a dumb war . . . I know that an invasion of Iraq
without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only
fan the flames of the Middle East and encourage the worst, rather than best,
impulses of the Arab world.”
Obama is politically liberal and temperamentally conservative; McCain is
temperamentally liberal and politically unpredictable. Obama is cerebral;
McCain is emotional. Obama is reserved, sometimes aloof; McCain is a social
gadfly and seemingly terrified of being left alone and silent. Obama wins
press adoration but is not close to journalists; McCain is personal friends
with hacks of all sorts. Obama makes plans and executes them with sometimes
chilling discipline; McCain veers from one passion to another, winging it -
and somehow pulling it off.
Obama hates to lose but is happy to hang back in a fight, allowing his
oppo-nent to overreach himself; McCain is just as competitive, but if he has
ever pulled a rhetorical or political punch, it’s news to me.
Obama is a master of the rhetorical set-piece; McCain is happiest yakking it
up at informal town hall meetings, telling corny jokes. Obama has a
traditional family life, a solid marriage, two seemingly poised young
daughters and, until recently, regularly attended church (something that
seems to elude Republican presidents, for all their public religiosity).
McCain dumped his first wife after she was disfigured in a car accident and
married a pretty heiress. He has children from both marriages and an adopted
child from a Bangladeshi orphanage.
Yes, Obama dabbled in drugs as a young man; but McCain was marinated in booze.
McCain, in other words, has a good deal of George W Bush’s adolescence in
him, without the born-again experience. Obama, for all his affect of cool,
is actually quite nerdy. IT IS possible, of course, to admire both men, to
like them in their very different ways and yet remain torn about which one
would be best to lead America, and the world, for the next four or eight
years. The difficult question Americans have to ask themselves is not who is
the right man – it is who is right for now. After 9/11, Afghanistan and
Iraq, as Russia reasserts itself, as Iran closes in on a nuclear bomb, as
Pakistan threatens to crack apart and as the US economy teeters on crisis,
which of these two men has the qualities needed to succeed?
If you believe the problem with America’s war on terror is that it has not
been ambitious enough, or tough enough, or monumental enough, McCain is your
man. If you think the United States needs to be feared more than it needs to
be loved, McCain is your man. And if you think that the economic policies of
the past eight years - specifically Bush’s low tax rates - are necessary for
growth, McCain is the obvious choice.
In some ways he is the last hope for the Republicans that their conservative
movement is rescuable. McCain reassures them that the Bush era was not a
total miscalculation but merely a good idea poorly executed.
Obama represents something more radical: a return of the multilateral,
international umbrella of traditional American diplomacy and
alliance-building. He represents this even as America is at war with deeply
destructive forces in the asymmetrical global battlefield and even as
partners such as Russia and China seem uninterested in keeping the
international system as a model of rational discourse. He is less likely to
see a struggle between good and evil in the world than a dark but promising
place where the American national interest and the elevation of human
dignity in the developing world are compatible.
At home he offers a return to Clinton-era economics, with tax rates hiked on
the wealthy and marginally cut for the middle class. Unlike McCain, who
likes the imperial presidency put on steroids by Bush and Dick Cheney, his
vice-presi-dent, Obama would root the presidency more firmly within
historical norms, deferring to Congress and the courts at times, determined
to restore what he believes is a more traditional relationship between the
executive branch and the rule of law.
Were it not for the surge’s minor rehabilitation of the Iraq war, it would be
hard to see how McCain would stand a chance. The glimmers of success in
Mesopotamia have fanned the dying embers of neo-conservatism - and Vladimir
Putin’s Cheney-like attitude to asserting Russia’s interests has made
McCain’s otherwise slightly retro 1980s combativeness seem less irrational.
For the moment McCain has leveraged understandable hesitation about Obama
among those who do not yet know him well and kept himself in the race. This
week Obama will be forced to redraw the narrative, redescribe this moment in
history and persuade Americans that he really is the one most suited to take
the country and the world forward.
He has his work cut out for him. And so does McCain. This is a Nadal-Federer,
Borg-McEnroe affair. I predict five sets. And a great match.
Obama will win by a landslide, because so many great media guys like Sullivan are on his side.
Poor McCain. What a poor chance he has !!!
Ganpat Ram , London , UK
Thank you for a very balanced and informative article.
A clear choice indeed now for US voters while the world holds its breath and crosses its fingers!
Asari, London, UK
You cannot compare this with Borg-McEnroe. They were both great tennis players. McCain is not in the same league as Obama. He cannot think off the top of his head like Obama. He only answers in predetermined, stock responses that almost always mention his POW events. Yawn, yawn
Andrew, Godalming, UK
I agree with Mr. Calder of Dubai, who said "no one (from either side of the pond) has summed up the differences between Obama and McCain as clearly and eloquently." To those with an open mind, I would say it's also the most impartial. Thank you.
Ralph Bussard, Austin, Texas, USA
Great, fair, enlightening piece. 2 candidates, evenly matched, both with their own strengths and weaknesses. Too bad you can't have joint Presidents...
Mark, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
OBAMA'S 3AM TEXT MESSAGE TELLS US THIS:
OBAMA IS AN ARROGANT PUNK.
Spitting in the face of a defeated opponent 1 more time, making a point when you should be making a decision speaks to this empty suit's absence of class. Obama will lose to McCain and lose big. And, I'm not a McCain supporteer.
Michael, Coral Springs,
Despite your glowing assessment of Obama (along with the four to one fawning coverage by the media) the race is a dead heat. Perhaps it's because most question Obama's lack of experience and accomplishments and his long-time, active membership in such a hateful, radical church.
Lola Detroit, MI USA
Lola, Detroit, USA
It's sad how many American posters here haven't done their homework on McCain. They often use the phrase "empty suit" to describe Obama, not realizing that their own man has a far more established record of lying and switching positions for political gain, stretching back years. McCain, empty man.
Michael Sheridan, Sacramento, California, USA
Dennis D,
The article says talented, NOT 'experienced' or 'accomplished.' Though its early days I'd say young Barak measures up to young Bill and as for McCain and Bush senior, no contest.
Joe, Bucharest,
Andrew your comments on McCain in POW Camp being incompetent meant exactly what? How can you claim these are the best 2 candidates that ever faced eachother since Nixon- JFK? Obama has no experience and no accomplishments Bush 41- Clinton were a better pair.
Dennis D, NJ , USA
Sorry Andrew. The Berlin speech was no huge success, In fact Obama dropped like a hammer in polls upon return. McCain has been making steady ground against Obama because Liberalism doesn't sell in America.
Dennis D, NJ , USA
Obama LIED to 18 Million Hillary supporters by saying that she was on the short list for VP, when in fact, he never considered her at all. Obama's wife basically made that decision for Barrack. Ed Rendell made it clear that Hillary intends to run again in 2012. HILLARY in 2012!
GeraldD, Moulton, USA
Andrew Sullivan,
Great piece, wonderfully written. I am a strong Obama supporter as I think McCain could do a lot of damage when we can ill-afford to absorb it after the last 8 years (starting wars, further trashing the economy). But I liked your fresh look at the election and these candidates.
Susan Andrews, Seattle, USA
Both MEN are huge successes. We should applaud them both for the come from behind wins and truly interesting lives.
Well done Andrew. In the end however, it will be the difference in the two men's relationships with their mothers that will count.
Neil, Huntingdon,
More pro Obama blather....
Eric, BRIGHTON, USA
I love how the press continues to treat the '06 and current elections as the last gasps of Republican Conservative values in the U.S. I can guarantee that we will see an ebb and flow between progressive and conservative parties for some time, whether McCain wins or not.
Bryan Ellertson, Colombus, OH, USA
The best analysis I have yet read on the 2 candidates. Very good Andrew. Its a keeper.
Dean, Damascus, Oregon, USA
John McCain's heroism in Vietnam has left a man bitter about the way that war ended and determined to re-fight it again and again in Iraq, Iran, Georgia, and who knows where else. Obama's lack of accomplishments concerns voters but by November they will be scared even more of McCain.
Rich Scheer, Takoma Park MD, USA
C D R, I'm not sure which RCP poll you are talking about but if you look at their electoral map at http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/, Obama is leading 228 to 174 with 136 electoral votes classified as "toss up".
Seamus, LA,
Every 4 years we have this sloppy theater that there's a real difference between Democrats and Republicans. Is there evena dime's worth of difference between the 2? Both parties managed to destroy this country over the last 30 years.
Pat Davis, Gilbertsville, USA
Well written article, although somewhat biased in favor of Obama. So here he is, John Mccain, last in his class in the naval academy, an avowed drunkard, clouded thinker, says he doesnt understand economics. This is America's best and brightess? the cream of our crop? i think not.
Don DuFraine, Columbus, USA
I'm tired of the neocons controlling the media and blogs with their hired help to knock down the dems. Barack Obama is the real deal, and so is Joe Biden. You can smear and smear, but it still won't win this election. You already shot your wad with GB. And we all know you shot blanks!! CHANGE!
Danny, Chicago, USA
Obama would win by 8:1 if he were running against mccain in britain.
HE"S NOT RUNNING IN BRITAN! I can understand the confusion though... he did campaing al over Europe... I just wished he had stayed there!
and THIS WAS A PRO OBAMA piece if I ever read one...
Brandon, Merritt Island Fl,
This article is a cartoon.
robert, Minneapolis, USA
"Obama would win by 8:1 if he were running against mccain in britain."-Matt Hardeman
Oh, please, please can we send him over to you all, then?!!!
Tracey H., Daytona Beach, United States
Andrew - great piece, as always. Life is nuanced, which is hard for most ardent Dems and Republicans to understand. I want Obama to win, but McCain has a lot of appeal. Hadn't realized he was a boozer in his early life - probably makes me like him more.
Neil McCurley, Reading, UK
Forget the content of Obama vs. McCain, this was a wonderfully crafted essay. Sullivan establishes a very clear thesis, provides supporting evidence, acknowledges and accomodates (not to mention refutes) the opposing point of view, and writes in a clear, logical style. US jounalists pay attention!
Matthew Reed, Fort Bragg, CA, USA
Hang on everyone! After the 19 month primary process so far, this election is getting ready to be historically fascinating. I think Andrew wrote a nice piece here.
Jay, New Orleans, Louisiana , USA
McCain's calcified opinions and out of touch mentality aren't the result of his age. He's always been a typical Republican anti-mensch.
Dale, Camarillo, USA
A wonderful piece of prejudiced pro-obama press. By the way, ad hominem attacks on McCain will backfire. Try an idea or two, maybe check with Joe, he knows where to steal them.
Harold Cannon, Owensboro, United States
To say that this article was Obama-biased is rubbish, you should bear in mind the fact that Obama would win by 8:1 if he were running against mccain in britain. This was one of the most mccain-friendly articles around. Just not Mccain fanatical, like some of you readers seem to wish that it were.
Matt Hardeman, London, UK
OBAMA IS NOT A LEADER, HE'S A READER!
He gives a great teleprompter speech. Off the cuff, he stumbles.
BA, Jax, Fl., USA
Zoltan Newberry, what are you talking about ? Independent studies have proved the economy and stock market historically prosper better under democratic than republican administrations.
We live in a mixed economy. Pure laissez fair went out in the 19th century.
Joe, Vista, USA
Obama's " riveting" biography"? What did I miss?
john Swarz, New york,
Mister Sullivan should take his pants off, he has fallen in love so hard for this phony, corrupt Chicago pol with his "where's MY trustfund" bitter wife.
Zoltan newberry, Chicago, Il, USA
You state that there are two really qualified men running for president. Were you referring to one of the third party hopefuls? I know you didn't mean to imply that Obama is the other qualified person, as that would be funnier than him naming Biden as his running mate.
Sam Carle, Alliance,
Just the possibility of an Obama Presidency has put our economy and our markets on hold. The man does not understand the mechanics of growth. The man is hostile to capital formation and capital preservation. He's typifies the arrogant left winger with no real understanding of human nature.
Zoltan newberry, Chicago, Il, USA
Wow, part political broadcast for the DNC! Nice to see Obama gets the same soft treatment from the British press he that he recieves at home. Now that's international cooperation!
Lee Harker, Columbus,
Obama is mainly a hyped up creation of the American liberal press. Unfortunatley many of the American and European masses who have been so disenchanted with Bush in their desperation to find someone to believe in have taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker. Good looks, articulate, and vague promises
Joven, Maple Valley, USA
John McCain should change his name to John McBush. Its all the same, same taxes that only the rich see benefits from. Same foreign policy that has us alone and hated. Supreme courts that forget about the welfare of mankind and "strictly uphold the constitution" (by the way its outdated!) Im worried!
Kylan, El Sobrante, United States
I can't see how Obama's biography is as "riveting" as McCain's. How do you come up with that one?
DHP, Newbury, VT, USA
McCain scares me. This guy has not met a war he did not want to start and keep going indefinitely. His pals in the media has successfully sold the public this "Maverick" line. The truth is he is a Neo Con of the highest order and was promoting war with Iraq before even Dubya.
Brad, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
Yes, yes, yes: If we only knew Obama better, we would grow to love him. Well, being affiliated with a convicted felon to finance your house; going to a Marxist Black Liberation church for twenty years-all give me reason to doubt that Obama is the "apple pie American" that he wants us to believe.
jeff, bakersfield, united states
Mr Sullivan: I am an American, and a regular reader of U.S. political commentary from the leading media outlets. Just want to say that no one (from either side of the pond) has summed up the differences between Obama and McCain as clearly and eloquently as you have in this piece. Well done.
Ryan Calder, Dubai, UAE
The Democrats missed their chance to put this election in the bag. Clinton-Obama would have been an unbeatable ticket. Little notice would be paid to Obama's inexperience with him at veep. But there is this yearning for "change," you see.
Jim, Orlando, FL, USA
All McCain has to do is point out that the housing mess, and the price of gasoline has happened with the non-dynamic duo of San Fran Nan and Dingy Harry. Do you want four more years of ' crises ' or not ? Having ' crises ' is part of the dogma of ' progressives '. Obama could not lead a dog !
Desmond Taylor, Houston, USA TX
Coupla points: You guys over there were more impressed with his trip than we were over here. Also, his now famous speech against the war in '02 was made in an obscure setting when he was unknown. It wasn't even remembered until he brought it up himself during the primaries. Not so gutsy, really.
Raynor, Long Island, USA
Just words but liberal bias at its best. Nothing is a lock until Nov 5 th, unless Obama uses Gore's and Kerry's montra that the election was once again stolen. Don't count your chickens before they hatch Pelosi and Reid and the Democratic Congress managed to get into single digit approval ratings.
Nick Ialenti, Phoenix, Az, USA
Obama has made the bed on which his political aspiration the the United States Presidency will end. Joseph Biden is a Senator and a senator not afraid to express his opinions. He is a true liberal Democrat on domestic issues. he may be great in American foreign policy but surely be an Obama stooge.
alex, Boston, USA
Obama touts change like a mantra but isn't telling us what he intends to change or how. He's changed his own position so many times, we really don't know what to believe about him. Sure, change is needed, but not ANY or ALL change is desirable. That all makes me very uncomfortable.
lawhite, Idaho, USA
1. Che Guevara posters in campagin HQ.
2. "I fit right in with all the marxist professors..."
3. friend is a radical leftist & bombed pentagon.
4. 20 years at a radical liberation(i.e. "marxist") church.
5. The most extreme stance possible on abortion.
Sorry libs, not electable.
Jamman, Wyoming, Oh, USA
If all this idiot can use as an issue is John McCain's homes the American people need to be very worried, he won't let a child live when it survives a botched abortion, but he is concerned about John McCain (the American Patriotic Hero) and his wifes properties, what a fool. HE STOLE THE PRIMARY.
Sonia Jolene, Ocala, USA
let's hope all people truly look at obama and what he supports Many people probably do not know that when speaking to a pro choice meeting this year he said the first thing he would do as president was make abortion freely available to all at all stages.What about the economy, the war etc?
al, san antonio,
Wow, the author and his liberal friends sure are predictable. Le's see, amongst other "noble" ideas, they support:
1. Infanticide (after a botched abortion...aka MURDER of a living baby)
2. Wealth redistribution via high taxes and social giveaways.
3. Surrender and apeasment
Mike, Raleigh NC, USA
"I find it hilarious when people say the 55-60% of whites not voting for Obama are racist while the 95% of black not voting for McCain are not racists. "
So when blacks were in the past voting democratic 80-90% for white candidates what were they then? Your argument is flawed and silly.
MOE, ny, ny, usa
Thank goodness Europeans don't pick American presidents. Only the media thinks Obama's European odyssey meant anything, though I'm sure that Russia and Iran would welcome his presidency. And for the misinformed, McCain is leading in the Real Clear Politics poll 274 electoral votes to 264.
C D R, California, USA
I would love to know whether the avalanche of negative ads are beginning to alienate American voters.
Obama has a strong, uplifting message for a war-weary nation but it is difficult to assess, from the UK side of the pond, whether Rovelike tactics are beginning to drown it out.
mary rose gliksten, windsor, UK
I find it hilarious when people say the 55-60% of whites not voting for Obama are racist while the 95% of black not voting for McCain are not racists. Obama is involved with very shady people in Chicago and he is way to the left of most Americans. He will not carry key states like FL, OH, MO .
Freddy, Tampa , USA/Florida
Democrats are the party of hate and discontent. The liberal media will continue to talk a blue-streak but I'm simply not listening to their biased "reporting" any longer.
Jami Simmons, Fort Wayne, USA
Things are going much better in Iraq than Andrew wants to admit. He was an initial supporter of the war, and then recanted when things began going badly. Now he's understating the success of the surge because he doesn't want to appear to have been wrong TWICE about so important an issue.
David, Austin, United States
McCain is mentally incompetent. He goes to a market in Iraq, clad in armor (armour) and with 'copters overhead, and he comes back and says it's perfectly safe. His campaign is crawling with lobbyists and he says there are none. He's delusional; he sees things that aren't there.
Russ Feingold, Arlington,
US presidential elections are won in the Electoral College, not at large and Obama is leading 269 - 256 with13 tie votes in one poll. In another Obama leads with 229 to McCain's 174 with 136 leaning one direction or another. McCain is not leading in any poll that matters, certainly not these.
Martha Bell, Charleston, SC, USA
Obama is leading in all polls of the Electoral College which is where US presidential elections are won. These are narrowing, like other polls, but they are the races to watch and are state-by-state. This is why Florida was so notoriously crucial to Bush.
Martha Bell, Charleston, SC, USA
Great piece, but it scares me that you think they are evenly matched. Obama is so superior, and McCain sounds possibly senile. McCain may say that there is no room for on-the-job training in the white house, but I think that the white house is no place to test how far the Alzheimer's has advanced.
Donna, Boise, ID, USA
McCain's first wife gets to feel the pain of being dumped for a rich heiress with a copious bosom and Stepford wife-smile every day, J.B. Moran. McCain not knowing how many houses he has tells us two things: 1. that he's an old geezer, and 2. he's not just rich, but filthy rich.
S Smith, Fredericksburg, VA, USA
McCain had a great verbal zinger at the GOP 2004 Convention when he saw Michael Moore in the press gallery and he attacked him very cleverly. Look it up it was a highlight. As a democrat, there are many like me who won't vote for Obama, whose flipping on FISA upset a lot of us.
nick hronis, Los Angeles, USA
"But beneath his incompetence and insolence there was a character and sense of duty worth not just taking seriously, but honouring"
So, exactly what is the source of the "incompetence" charge? That he was shot down? That he was a POW?
Come on Andrew, that was a cheap shot.
John, Morris, AL, USA
Funny I should read in a British newspaper that the 3 am text message had meaning. Here across the pond, it is generally expected that it was a giant screw up--a gimmick gone bad. Biden is a TERRIBLE CHOICE & will alienate Hillary Clinton supporters in sufficient numbers that Obama may lose.
MJ, Boston MA, USA
Nice try, Andrew.
We went down this path in 1976 and ended up with Jimmy Carter, as well as Democrat majorities in the House and Senate... And look what a mess President Reagan had to clean up.
By the way, if you like the "American Dream" narrative, we have Bobby Jindal warming up in the bullpen.
Dan Schwartz, Sayreville, NJ, US of A
Patrick in DC:
Zogby is the only poll that fully addresses The Bradley Effect... `Ya know, the reason why the post-Super Tuesday polls were so far off in places like Pennsylvania and Ohio, where Hillary smashed Obama into pieces.
Dan Schwartz, Sayreville, NJ, US of A
Obama really feels our pain living in that
l.6 million dollar mansion and sending both
children to exclusive private schools.
Typical hypocrite liberal who lives like
a rich Republican.
J B Moran, Sikeston, Mo., USA
I've met Barack, and he's the real deal. On the other hand, want a war with Iran? Then the Top Gun's your guy.
David, Chicago, Illinois.
David De Jong, Chicago, USA
Mr. Sullivan:
I disagree with some of your premises, some of your conclusions, and some of your "statements of fact."
I believe that Senator McCain is incompetent and that Senator Obama could result in armed revolution.
You have written a good piece, which I respect.
Jim, Billings, USA
I'm shocked Mr. Sullivan can predict with such seeming accuracy how both men will behave as president, particularly given Mr. Obama's non-record. Maybe Sullivan should find a big lottery to play! However, I must say his description of Mr. Obama sounds like it's straight out of Pollyanna. Pitiful.
Elaine, Lakeland, USA
Well done!! Keep it simple folks, if you are doing just as well or even better today then when Bush came in, vote for McCain. But, if your situation is less fruitful, distressed or approaching dire, you, like most of America need a CHANGE. Vote Obama. Satisfied - McCain. Dissatisfied - Obama.
DWR, Tampa, USA
Mr. Sullivan refers to, "... Vladimir Putin’s Cheney-like attitude ..." While I know that Cheney is a loser who does not respect the rule of law, I think it goes a bit far to equate Cheney with Putin. Cheney has not siphoned 40 BILLION through corruption, and Cheney will go quietly on 20 January.
David, San Diego, USA
tennis has really arrived, thank you rafa and roger, and bandwagon jumping is okay for now andrew
marc, youngstown, usa
I believe that the American posters on here are right - McCain will win, not because he is a better candidate but because of strong racist views held by most white Americans, who live is cloud cukooland and who have never set foot outside USA. to see what the world is like in 2008!
Ali, London, UK
Europe and especially Great Britain would never elect an African to it's highest office.
Jim Ivey, Valley, Alabama
Obama is leading in the national polls, not trailing. He's been ahead all summer by a narrow margin, according to the realclearpolitics.com and pollster.com aggregations of national polls. The one major poll that showed McCain in the lead (Zogby) is an outlier.
Patrick, Washington DC, USA
Um, Jim, six years ago was 2002. Obama was in the State Senate by then for at least five years.
You may not like Obama, but math is, indeed, math.
Mike Harmanos, Costa Mesa, California, United States
Barry Hussein Obama says he doesn't know when human life begins and It's "above my pay grade". It begins when you go to the pharmacy and buy condoms. That's why its called birth control. Any guy who answers like that will never be president. Maybe that's why McCain is ahead.
Brett Thompson, Hollywood, USA
"McCain and Obama are two evenly matched, larger-than-life figures with riveting biographies"
lol nice try
Bern, Denver, United States
Obama is an empty suit with no core values??? Pretty strong judgement. Disagree with his policies if you will, but to make such a statement is doing yourself a real disservice. Try to remember, he is an American and we are all on the same team. Elitist statments do not move the convers. forward.
Ryan, Dallas, USA
I find this pro-Obama piece disturbing. He's merely an inexperienced politician with no real professional background. The ridiculously liberal bias of the US media has propped Obama up, even though he offers no substance, just fluff. I hope my friends in the UK read all of these comments.
John, Pensacola, USA
It wasn't McCain's fault that another aircraft on the deck of the Forrestal accidently fired a missle that hit his aircraft as he was waiting to lauch, so please don't intimate that it was. And he did distinguish himself by surviving, resisting, and refusing special treatment as a POW.
Ralph, Lorton, USA
I would just like to say that you do not understand the American voter. I think McCain will win in close to a landslide. When the heartland tunes in, Obama's socialism will eliminate him. Sorry but we are not Europe.
Brenda, Davison, USA
I got as far as, "Many of them will have got the joke..." and realized there would be nothing honest in this column. The joke was on Obama when his precious little "text message" plan blew up in the middle of the night with a leak. LOL!
Barb, Edmonton, Canada
It's funny that despite the media coverage of Obama, he still trails McCain. Everything you wrote about Obama was speculation. He's proven nothing. And the piece about his attending church is pretty bad. That church was racist (anti-white) and anti-American.
Matt, Los Angeles, USA
It would seem to Mr. Sullivan that only those who are ignorant or radical would vote for McCain. Isn't it simply possible that there is about half the country that doesn't like Obama not because of his race but of his politics? His record of far left on virtual every issues scares many of us.
Darin Haugland, Inver Grove Heights,
deferring to Congress & the courts at times determined to restore what he believes is a more traditional relationship between the executive branch & the rule of law. Washington, Jackson, Lincoln,2 Roosevelts, Polk, Truman, Reagan deferring was not accecptable.Hisrorical tradition is political combat
Kent Smith, Burleson, TX, USA
This is a well written piece. However, I can definitely feel a biased opinion on the skew of Obama. Come on dude, be neutral and objective. Throw out the hidden pro left bent.
Jesse, tucson,
Why are you media so liberal? Why do you all bow down to Obama? Has it at least crossed your mind that McCain has a very good chance of winning? Obama is an empty suit with no core values.
John D, St. Paul, MN, USA
Obama lost to Bobby Rush who beat Obama for Congressman not councilman. Obama is unpredictable with Far Left tendencies and a plethora of Corruption and influentcial donors who want their money's worth out of him.
He is the Unknown Known Candidate which Americans are looking at in a State of Panic.
JOHN C, Chicago, USA
Another interesting one...
C...
jsheranek, Rihmond, USA
Well put, Andrew, as always. However, you underestimate American/Coalition gains in Iraq, and the importance of that one factor to the McCain candidacy. The Russian "dictator" Putin's aggression in Georgia, and Russian threats elsewhere, may buoy the McCain campaign as well.
Timothy D. Naegele, Malibu, California, USA
Six years ago Obama lost an election to become city councilman by a more than 2 to 1 margin. Now he wants to be President of the United States
I think we know the real Obama i.e. not ready to be city councilman much less President of the United States
jim brinkley, buenos aires, argentina