US Presidential Election
In this part of the world, if you asked the public who Barack Obama was about 18 months ago, spread betters would have been lucky to get a 10% rate of correct answers. Even in some states in America this would be a good outcome as two years ago he was an unknown Senator. Now however, following his meteoric rise to prominence, he is currently favourite in some polls to become the next President of the United States of America
The odds on this would have been very high for spread betting and if you were clever enough to put some money down over a year ago, or even at the start of this year, you could be sitting on a windfall come November.
The elections are taking place on Tuesday, 4th November but for Obama and Senator John McCain, it is the final fence in a campaign that has been going on for nearly two years now.
McCain, the Senator from Arizona, wrapped up the Republican Presidential nomination quite early and easily with his main rivals falling early after comprehensive defeats in the primaries. McCain had enough votes by the 4th March infact, whereas Obama’s battle with Senator Hilary Clinton went close to the wire before she conceded defeat in June.
John McCain formally announced his intention to run for President of the United States on April 25, 2007 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. At that rally, he stated that: "I'm not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things."
Obama actually had a few months head start on McCain, it was February 10, 2007 when Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in front of the Old State Capitol building in Illinois. He made this announcement at this location because it was symbolic site - Abraham Lincoln in 1858 delivered a historic speech there.
Voters do not, technically, participate in a direct election of the president. They choose "electors", who are pledged to one or another candidate. This is known as the Electoral College.
Each state has a certain number of electors to the college, based on the size of its population.
In most states, the winner of the popular vote gets all the electoral college votes in that state. Because of this system, a candidate can become President without winning the popular vote, such as in 2000 when George W Bush defeated Al Gore.
Each candidate is trying to distance themselves from the Bush presidency, something which is quite hard for Senator McCain as he can't condemn his fellow Republican party member as easily as Democratic hopeful Obama can.
The choice of a running mate for each candidate was also a major decision and because Obama was being attacked for having little or no experience, he chose, not Hilary Clinton as most expected, but Senator Joe Biden. Biden, the 65-year-old Senator from Delaware, has great foreign policy and national security experience and Obama took this into consideration when he picked him.
McCain, on the other hand, went the opposite direction and picked an unknown in Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five, is the first woman and the first Alaskan to run on the Republican party's presidential ticket.
The self-proclaimed ‘hockey mum’ said she couldn’t wait for the battle ahead but in the cut throat business of American Politics, it wasn’t long before news that her 17-year-old daughter was pregnant became headline stories and some of her early one-on-one interviews with the press were less than impressive, especially one in which she didn’t seem to know what the Bush Doctrine was.
Since then, she has gone on a 36-hour crash course in foreign policy, meeting as many leaders as she could, including presidents of Afghanistan and Iraq, Hamid Karzai and Jalal Talabani, as well as the leader of the main US ally in Latin America, Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. She also met new Pakistani president, Asif Ali Zardari, as well as the presidents of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, and Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko.
To a nation like America where style over substance often wins out, this goes someway to help Palin but with the main debates between the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates coming up soon, it mightn’t be enough to persuade America that Palin is ready to step into the main job if anything happens to McCain.
Another major factor in deciding who wins in November is voter turnout. This will play a crucial role in deciding who gets to be inaugurated in January. If Obama can get a high turnout with black lower income families, who traditionally vote Democratic, spread betters backing him might be very happy come the night of the 4th November.
In 2004, there was a voter turnout 56.69%. This was the highest since the 1968 election and commentators predict that this turnout figure will have to rise again this year if Obama is really going to ‘change’ the political landscape of the world.
There are two key states that a candidate needs to win in order to become president. These states are Ohio and Florida.
Florida was won by Republican’s in 2004 and also in that infamous battle with Al Gore in 2000 but Obama will be hoping that Florida's numerous senior citizens, a traditional Democratic group, will turnout for him but McCain can expect to pick up votes among the many military voters in the north of the state. With 27 electoral college votes, it is a key state for both parties.
Ohio has 20 electoral college votes but is it seen as a symbol of America and whoever wins here tends to win the election. George Bush won in both 2000 and 2004. However, in 2006, Democrats picked up the governorship, a Senate seat and a House seat, putting them in a much stronger position for the 2008 Presidential election.
Whoever wins in November, one thing is certain, you can get the best odds online at Sporting Index.
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