McCain’s Card

Between the widespread apprehension over the adverse economic situation and the crisis of sub-prime mortgages, troubled times in the presidential campaign in the United States. Disputes, by now exasperated as ever on every question between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, are being repeated. After the challenges in Indiana and in North Carolina, it is foreseeable that the conflict between “Obamaworld” and “Hillaryland” will be characterized by growing reciprocal aggressiveness up until the June primaries, if not until the Denver Convention in August. But it is also foreseeable that the duel between the antagonists of the Democratic party could in the end favor the unbiased conservative John McCain, already considered the winner in his party for the Convention in Minneapolis in September.

Certainly McCain, supported by Bush, would have to overcome the unpopularity of his sponsor after the five years of war in Iraq. According to an analytic study by a professor at Harvard, Linda Bilmes, this enterprise has up to this point cost three trillion dollars (The Three trillion dollar war). According to the calculations of the economist Joseph Stiglitz, the financial burden of a war without end would be even greater. More than a sponsor, Bush could prove to be a burdensome “albatross around his neck”. In similar circumstances, the candidate turns to changeable and often inconsistent opinions. Now he declares that renouncing the Iraq garrison is impossible, now on the other hand he deplores the damages suffered also to the prestige of the superpower and adds before the World Affairs Council: “We can not make ourselves led only by our power…we can not do everything that we want when we want.

We will have to listen more to our allies…” But he concludes, like numerous electors, that for now the war in Iraq does not allow for a realistic exit strategy. Against McCain, the argument of age, 72 years old, is also raised. Is he too old for the White House? He could answer that Ronald Reagan elected in 1981 at seventy years old, was president until 1989. But he prefers to be ironic: “I am older than the Earth, I have more scars than Frankenstein…” Then he presents his mother to the public, a woman of ninety-five who is still energetic. But the issue that his supporters trust is that no one else can boast of a similar biography, in war and in peace. The veteran having survived Vietnam, after five years of prison and torture, can also remember his twenty-five years of active parliamentary experience in spite of infirmity. But one discusses personal matters that promote sympathy rather than grounds for political consensus.

In the hypothesis that the duel between Obama and Hillary proves to be “fratricidal” up until the Denver Convention or almost that far, a reserve candidate, up until now obscure, the “dark horse,” could arise. But who? On the effective field of the electoral campaign, above all, only McCain could remain but he, however, would have to win in too many decisive states like California, New York, Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Florida. Is it likely? The doubts and uncertain expectations connote the ferments and unforeseeable states of mind of this composite society. The electoral scenario does not allow for predictions, at least so far. Even the English, who always bet on everything, are abstaining this time.