US08 - The Final Hurdle

Whoever - Barack Obama or John McCain - gets elected as the next US President, history will be made either way.

If Obama with his roots in Kenya makes it to the White House, the most powerful office in the world, the United States of America will have its first black President. If McCain wins the race, Sarah Palin will become the first woman Vice President in US history. In fact, with Obama clinching Democratic Party nomination and Sarah Palin becoming McCain's running mate from the Republican Party, both have become part of the history-making process.

Earlier, Hillary Rodham Clinton's gruelling contest with Obama for the party nomination initiated the process of rewriting history. So whatever may be the result of the US presidential polls, the US citizens as also the world are poised to witness the unfolding of a chapter not recorded in US history.This exactly makes the US presidential election-2008 different from all the previous ones. Barack Obama was leading his rival McCain, according to all the opinion polls.

If nothing dramatic happens at the last moment, the man from Kenyan descent should win the race. But with only a day left, McCain was gaining some momentum and if the undecided voters are taken into account, there is no guarantee for a clear-cut Obama victory. Yet Obama's forays in the traditional Republican bastions this time gave the indication that he was a favourite and might win over quite a few of them on his side. He has been able to argue convincingly in favour of his slogan, "Change we need." The Bush administration with its not so enviable performance on the financial and war-on-terror fronts has definitely helped his cause, whereas McCain has sounded less convincing on both these issues.

Nevertheless, if McCain proves Gallup polls wrong and emerges a winner despite the mess created by President Bush, it will confirm the doubt, as many people across the world are used to harbouring, about the racial integration the Americans claim they have achieved. Obama has conjured up a vision of a better USA as also a better world by putting forward his proposals for engaging those opposed to US interests and leadership into dialogues. McCain wants to follow in Bush's footsteps and overcome opposition by force. Obama's economic agenda - much as McCain may complain that he will redistribute wealth by taking it from the rich by way of higher taxation - seems to have won over the Americans.