McCain’s miracle?

McCain’s advisers are hoping, praying is more like it, for a late turnaround. Despite Obama’s significant lead, Republicans say, he has not yet “closed” the sale. They would like Obama to stumble as he did in the last of the Democratic primaries during spring, when he lost many of the final battles to Senator Hillary Clinton.

Optimistic Republicans point to the fact that Obama is yet to break through the 50 per cent barrier in many states.  Meanwhile pessimistic Democrats worry about the so-called “Bradley effect”, or the race factor, in the polls.

In the California governor’s election in 1982, a black Democratic candidate, Tom Bradley, lost to his  white Republican opponent despite the polls showing a clear lead of seven percent. The fear is that many white voters may be lying about their support to a black candidate.

In the few days that remain, McCain’s campaign is determined to sow doubts about Obama in mainstream America. With the tag of “liberal” losing its old negative effect, the Republicans are accusing Obama of being a “socialist”, and a past dalliance with “terrorists”.

To be sure, there have been miracles before. Harry Truman, a Democrat, upset all the predictions by winning in 1948. Democrats Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Al Gore in 2000, both underdogs during the campaign, came close to winning. Miracles by definition are rare. But it will be prudent to assume that the race might be tighter than what the polls suggest.

A divided nation

Whoever wins the elections, America’s current divisions can only get deeper. Obama’s victory will anger large segments of the conservative white vote. Given the unfortunate American tradition of political assassinations (not too different from the Indian subcontinent’s), the fear that Obama has put himself in harm’s way has had some basis.

Obama’s defeat too will split the nation badly. The liberals who never reconciled to George W. Bush’s “stealing” of the election in 2000, will be even more angry if McCain wins. Blacks and other minorities, who have rallied behind Obama, will conclude that the racial divide in the United States is impossible to bridge.The costs of managing the current economic crisis too will sharpen America’s internal conflicts. The conservative Republicans who revolted against President Bush’s decision for ‘state intervention’ to bail out will have even less time for Obama’s “tax and spend” policies.To be sure, the Democrats are likely to expand their current majorities in both houses of the U.S. Congress. That need not necessarily lead to greater national cohesion. A Republican White House and a more Democratic Congress will make matters much worse.

Whoever it might be, the forty fourth president of the US will need extraordinary political skill and wisdom. He must fashion and rule from a new middle ground that bridges the American political, cultural and economic divides.

(The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.)

iscrmohan@ntu.edu.sg