Poll vault

As one wag observed, the international community should be made eligible to vote in the US elections, given the interest the event generates worldwide and the realities of a unipolar world. It8217;s not just people in Utah and Iowa, it seems, who await the verdict with bated breath but folks in Belgium and Burkina Faso as well. The USA8217;s first election in the 21st century had its share of colour and spectacle; its tragedies and its comic interludes; its glorious certainties and inglorious uncertainties. It even had a lone crusader in the form of Ralph Nader refusing to go quietly into the night. Indeed, US Election 2000 had moments when the action seemed to resemble World Cup football rather than a presidential race not only for its rivetting TV fare but that nail-biting penalty shootout thrown in for free!

At the centre of all the attention were two personalities who, although not particularly endowed with charisma, nevertheless displayed a rare tenacity to get to Washington. The final dash to rein in the swing voter that both Al Gore and George W. Bush undertook in the dying moments of their respective campaigns and the unprecedented 3 billion spent on the presidential and congressional polls this time twice that of the amount spent in 1996 testifies to this. Clearly, standing for public office in the US of A is not for the faint-hearted or those with shallow pockets. That the victory could not be cheaply won was written so deeply into the scheme of things that even the most accomplished pollster was certain only about one thing: The uncertainty of the verdict. In 1996, there was lassitude in the air, and the 66 per cent electoral turn-out reflected public ennui. Bill Clinton was the clear winner even before he took off from the blocks. This time, the very lack of burning electoral issues ironically enoughseemed to impart a rare electricity to the proceedings, as each candidate reinvented himself and tried to put together a distinct constituency.

Even the term 8220;constituency8221;, as it is commonly understood in American pollspeak, seemed to have got redefined, with Bush posing as the 8220;compassionate conservative8221; and Gore rooting for family values and some control over Hollywood8217;s creative excesses. Of the two, it was Gore8217;s campaign that suffered more from an identity crisis brought on by the partial disintegration of the traditional Democratic constituency, with committed Left voters swinging towards Nader, and the business-friendly 8220;new8221; Democrats trying to carve a niche for themselves. Gore could never be Left enough to mop up the Nader votes, but in attempting to do this he may have alienated many in a country where the natural centre of gravity of politics tends to be right of centre.

The dead heat that the final phase of the US election turned out to be points to a dilemma that people in India are familiar with, given the hung verdicts that are increasingly manifesting themselves here. It presents a challenge to those who seek public office. The fuzzy promises of yore don8217;t work any longer, neither can candidates afford to take free rides on the supposed appeal of their parties. Modern democracy demands that politicians get their ideologies right, fashion their agendas wisely, convey their ideas clearly and, above all, display a commitment to the voter.