Electoral Politics: The Possibility of a ‘Perfect Storm’

David Aikman

The predictable journalistic punditry of every American presidential cycle—“the most vicious presidential election ever,” “how come we always end up with such mediocre candidates?”—has been handily refuted in the last 50 days or so of the 2008 presidential election. In Senators John McCain and Barack Obama, there are two candidates for the presidency of exceptional talent, but with contrasting approaches to America’s future. Obama, a gifted orator and charismatic campaigner who has energized a whole new generation of young people to participate in politics, harks back to candidate John F. Kennedy. Nearly half a century ago, JFK tapped into the political idealism of large numbers of young Americans, winning the presidency in the process.

Senator McCain is an orator of only average skills and few people would describe him as “charismatic.” But he is a demonstrable American hero whose courage in wartime brings to mind an American president of a century ago, Theodore Roosevelt. Furthermore, during a long career in the U.S. Senate McCain not only acquired impressive foreign policy credentials but a reputation as a “maverick” senator who often opposed his own political party and president (The most impressive of his “maverick” stances: opposing President Reagan’s decision in 1983 to send U.S. forces into Lebanon).

What is striking about both candidates is how broadly liked each is by Americans. In a recent Rasmussen poll, McCain had positive ratings among all Americans of 57 percent. Obama was very close behind with 53 percent. It is true, of course, that media coverage of the two men has been starkly different. The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, confirmed in a column that her own paper, as well as most other American daily newspapers, had given Obama not only statistically far more coverage than McCain, but far more favorable coverage. This lack of fairness in the mainstream media, however, may well have been counter-balanced by strongly pro-McCain sentiments voiced by America’s radio talk-show hosts, a significant number of whom are conservative. The complaints of conservatives that America’s mainstream media tend to be overwhelmingly liberal are certainly justified. On the other hand, liberals have a case to make that talk-radio is strongly slanted against liberal politicians.

Since his selection of Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his vice-presidential running-mate, McCain has been slightly ahead in the polls. That current advantage could turn out to be just as short-lived as Obama’s poll lead was for most of the months of May-August. There are three events that could occur before the November 4 election that would render entirely obsolete all current polls. They are: a major acceleration of the current U.S. economic downturn, a new terrorist attack against a U.S. target at home and abroad, and a war in the Middle East.

Recent news on the U.S. financial front is not encouraging. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan says that the current crisis facing the American economy is “a once-in-a-century” event, “the worst” he has ever seen in his lifetime. What he is referring to is the collapse of Wall Street financial giants such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, the bank Washington Mutual, and AIG, the world’s largest insurance company. Some analysts have predicted that fall-out from the Wall Street debacle could take the U.S. stock market down as many as a thousand points before things stabilize again.

The Wall Street insolvencies are all linked to the collapse of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage market, in which several global financial institutions lost billions by having invested in a careless and largely unscrutinized expansion of the American home loan market. What the British press calls a “knock-on effect” (the figure of speech is from the game of Rugby) is likely to come into being not just in the U.S. but in the world at large, whose stock markets have already suffered from the U.S. housing market collapse. More U.S. banks could collapse, companies go bankrupt, and a sense of economic panic could begin to emerge. If that happens, Democratic candidate Barack Obama will almost certainly win, because most polls show that the Democrats are more trusted on the economy than Republicans.

The “elephant-in-the-living-room” in the current presidential campaign, however, has been U.S. national security and terrorism, a topic in which barely four percent of voters seem to show any interest. Seven years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, there have been several more attempted plots against American targets or on U.S. soil, but they have all—so far—been foiled and the plotters arrested and, in most cases, convicted. Many people attribute this success to the policies of the Bush administration, the “global war on terror,” and to the Patriot Act and other Congressional legislation granting greatly enhanced powers of surveillance and investigation to the U.S. executive. But even if the Bush administration receives no credit from voters for keeping America safe in the past seven years, any terrorist outrage against Americans between now and November 4 would greatly enhance the election prospects of Senator McCain, who outpolls Senator Barack Obama on national security issues by up to twenty percentage points.

McCain and Obama differ sharply, of course, on issues such as the economy, education, and foreign policy. But on no issue is their viewpoint more divergent than on how to deal with terrorism. Senator Obama believes terrorism is largely a U.S. domestic law-enforcement issue, that terrorists are “extremists” who just happen to be Muslim. Senator McCain believes the U.S. is in a global conflict with “radical Muslim jihadists,” and that the war can definitely be won. Senator Obama prefers not to use the word “jihadists” in order not to offend Muslims worldwide.

Finally, there is the danger of war in the Middle East. Very simply, Israel has indicated in many different ways that it may well initiate an aerial attack on Iran to destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Though the U.S. has refused to provide Israel with new aerial refueling tankers, it agreed last week to sell 1,000 “bunker-busting” bombs, the so-called GBU-39, a smart bomb that can penetrate several feet of hardened bunker. This bomb would be crucial in any Israeli assault upon Iran’s nuclear facilities, an assault which Israelis, both in government and outside of it, seem broadly to support because they feel global diplomatic efforts to deter Iran from nuclearization have so far failed. If Israel struck, it would immediately be in a three-front war (Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza) and the U.S. might well be drawn in. So indeed, might Russia, on Iran’s side. If such a war began before November 4, the odds would favor the candidate closest to the current incumbent, namely McCain. Many people, however, think that a strike would be more likely between the election and the time when President Bush leaves office, January 20.

In effect, current polls offer a rational approach to estimating the outcome of the November 4 election. But with the entire world as volatile as it currently is in many different arenas, the identity of the American president on January 20 2004 may be determined by a “perfect storm” of events entirely outside his control. Or anybody’s control.  

Dr. Aikman, a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum, was for many years senior correspondent for Time.

1 Responses (comments are closed) • Columns, David Aikman, Leadership, Society, Thu 18 Sep 2008