DISPATCH FROM WASHINGTON
BY Abdillahi Alawy
We began our coverage of the illustrious Illinois Senator Barrack Obama’s campaign before he officially announced his bid for the White House in 2008. At that time, many observers pointed out that Obama as a candidate is a non-starter because of many reasons including his race, inexperience, and the racism blanket covering the United States. However, we asserted that Obama was going to be spectacular in this campaign.
Obama was compared to Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, and other non-white male candidates who came and went without leaving a mark on their presidential runs. Then came the announcement of his candidacy and the spectacular $25 million he raised in the first two months of the campaign. Soon after, the doubting e-mails against our prediction abruptly stopped coming. And, doubts have suddenly disappeared that a black person can actually become a US president.
A few of us had this gut feeling right from the beginning that Obama was something. And we did expect that around this time, the Illinois junior senator will be commanding a good standing in the polls. Going by the recent national polls conducted by Rasmussen Reports, Obama has actually taken the lead by overtaking the long-time leader Senator Hillary Clinton.
Evidently, he has exceeded our expectation and for the first time in the Election 2008 season, the New York Senator Hillary Clinton is not on top of the Democratic Presidential nomination. As of the end of April, Mr Obama had 32 percent while Senator Hillary Clinton had 30 percent of all the votes.
Of course this can change any minute. This is the age of Youtube and the Satellite Television and whatever the candidate does is all in the open and affects the polls very significantly. However, it looks like all what is happening is that Obama is steadily gaining on Hillary and there is no stopping for this son of a Kenyan professor. It is quite amazing for this largely unknown politician to be where he is today; a leading candidate who is beating a former First Lady and a Senator for over 8 years.
Rasmussen survey utilised telephone survey targeting likely Democratic Party primary voters. From the above summary, we gather that Obama has slightly overtaken Mrs Clinton. Although Obama’s lead is statistically insignificant, it is a sure sign of things to come in this campaign.
From January and up to now, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards has stayed at a distance third with poll-numbers hovering around 17 percent. In a recent debate where all the eight declared Democratic Party candidates participated last week, no winner was evident given the 90 minute duration and the format of the interview.
Still, if that debate had any effect on the campaigns it would not have shown in the April polls since this survey was conducted on April 23-26, 2007. If the debate had any impact it will be registered in this week’s polling.
Obama’s surge is credited to his strong showing at fund-raising. You can gather from the polls that in March, 2007, Hillary was leading Obama with over 12 percent. At the end of that month she had 37 percent to his 25 percent. But the tables were turned in April.
His campaign reports that most of Obama funds came in small donations from individual citizens some of whom gave less than $100. In the US, one citizen can contribute up to $4,600 towards a presidential campaign. It is a good thing that many of the small donors will come back and contribute more.
Many analysts believe that collecting smaller donations is a good strategy and it shows the goodwill that Obama’s campaign has promised. That it was going to avoid corporate campaign money and make this a campaign for the people rather than big interest businesses.
However, a closer reading of his fund-raising report reveal significant donations from big businesses and some law firms that he has connections with. Whether that will be problematic down the road is yet to be seen. However, we can confidently see that Obama is a real contender for his party’s nomination.
Obama is maximising on his staunch opposition of the Iraq war. Of all the four or five main candidates, he is the only one who did not vote for the war. He was not even in the Senate yet. And he has not wasted even one second reminding voters of that fact. As of this Wednesday,
President George Bush has just vetoed a war-funding bill, for Iraq, that had a schedule for redeployment of US soldiers out of Iraq and the war debate is gaining heat here in Washington.
Events like the above and the fact that there is a brand new guy at the top of Democratic Party presidential contenders has tremendously increased the visibility of Barrack Obama. Many have compared his oratory skills with John F. Kennedy. And, even though the elections are many months away, we are witnessing the rise of a very exciting phenomenon of renewed interest in government and politics.
It is possible that the 44th President of the United States of America may not be Barrack Obama; and if it does not happen in 2008, Obama is already shattering lifetime records that have positioned him for larger things than the presidency itself.
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