Why Obama?

The president that Americans must elect on the 4th of November will inherit a disaster. Eight years of the Bush administration have left the country in a pitiful state. Abroad, America is more disliked than she has ever been: caught up in two never-ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, she’s short of both moral and political credibility.

At home, The United States are paying a high price for the devastation caused by an economic liberalism which peaked during the presidency of George W. Bush and has resulted in a major economic crisis. And if the welfare state has shrunk, the police state, has, by contrast, expanded: in the name of the war on terror, civil liberties have experienced an unprecedented decline.

There is no miracle man who can remedy such a situation in four years.

But, to begin putting things right, Democrat Barack Obama seems to us to be better placed than Republican John McCain. There are several reasons for this. The first relates to the country’s mood. The arrival of a 47 year-old, mixed-race man in the White House would be a sign of America’s confidence in herself, in her loftiest values, in her ability to rise above the major drama of her past – racism and slavery. That would already be a big achievement and would serve as an example far beyond the United States.

But there’s more. At home, Barack Obama has the manifesto which is best suited to the American financial crisis: renewal of the State’s regulatory role; fiscal policies designed to deal with an increasingly non- egalitarian society; the will to provide Americans with medical coverage worthy of the country’s wealth; at last, environmental awareness where the Bush team refused any challenge to the model of consumerism.

Abroad, a democratic president cannot work a miracle. But Barack Hussein Obama, with his personality alone, would be much more in-tune with a world in which the West is no longer the economic and political center – a more mixed world.

By comparison, John McCain, a man with great experience in the center, has continued to move more to the right. He has ended up defending the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. He can only see himself winning by dividing Americans. He represents continuity where the less experienced Mr. Obama embodies hope.