US campaign strategies

Madam, - I must take issue with your "McCain Ahead" headline (August 21st) as quite misleading

Madam, - I must take issue with your "McCain Ahead" headline (August 21st) as quite misleading. A quick look at a website like RealClearPolitics shows that McCain has taken a lead over Obama in a single poll by the firm Zogby. Other simultaneous and later polls taken by other pollsters show Obama in the lead by margins between 1 and 5 percentage points. However, it is true that the race has tightened. From an average lead of 3 to 6 percentage points, Obama's lead is now between 1 and 2. Some concern for Obama then, but hardly a reason to cry Doom.

Another crier of Doom was Niall O'Dowd (August 18th). Mr O'Dowd is a disgruntled supporter of Hilary Clinton. Apparently, while Clinton herself has made her peace with the winner, some of her followers feel insufficiently stroked by the victorious Obama camp.

O'Dowd is right to point out that the Republicans have returned to what is now their traditional campaign. This is a media-driven presentation of their candidate as a ordinary, patriotic and folksy American and his opponent as a elitist, decadent, and out-of-touch liberal, with attendant smears concerning patriotism and character. How the "folksy" McCains will play against the backdrop of a multi-millionaire couple with seven residences remains to be seen. But, then, the same spin worked for a Texas millionaire Yale graduate with poor verbal skills.

At this point, Niall O'Dowd advises Obama to also go back to a traditional Democratic, populist campaign. Now, both Al Gore and John Kerry were ineffective in responding to Republican spin but it is easy to forget that Al Gore won the popular vote. Obama set out to engage directly with voters, make maximum use of the internet, use a big staff to conduct canvassing on the ground and encourage registration of new voters. He has also shown he can respond quickly and effectively to negative Republican spin. There is as yet no clear evidence that his strategy is not working.

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With both conventions about to begin, all polls before this can be discounted. Some lively face-to-face debates are ahead. Voters will now start to seriously make up their minds and the shadow-boxing has come to an end. Time for Mr O'Dowd to stop crying Doom, and start to support the Democratic candidate. - Yours, etc,

TOBY JOYCE, Balreask Manor Navan.