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Black or white

After the third TV duel between the two US presidential candidates in mid-October the European press believed that only racism or an unforeseen eventuality would allow the Republican candidate John McCain to gain enough votes to close the gap to Obama's lead.

TV duels in the United States can be planned in advance. The last television debate between the two US presidential candidates on 16 October followed a set pattern: Nine minutes were allocated to each topic, and the two candidates were alternately given two minutes to state their views on the subject. The audience, which sat behind the speakers, had to remain silent. It is almost as if the debate in the European press had been planned in advance as well, for the Obamania that has dominated the election campaign right from the beginning has now given way to a clear prognosis: Obama will make it, McCain will not.

T-shirts for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, and Republican presidential candidate John McCain at a hotel gift shop in Washington, July 2008. Photo: AP/Jae C. Hong

The Belgian daily Le Soir was already celebrating the predicted outcome on 21 October, joining the call for change that has been the slogan of the Obama campaign. "A black president as leader of the superpower America is no longer unthinkable. ... The man has an impressive campaign budget ..., a total of 650 million dollars – more than what [the two presidential candidates George W.] Bush and [John] Kerry spent between them in 2004! ... But is everything really already sown up? Not yet. Obama or McCain? This is a decision that concerns us. The whole world – particularly the Belgians and the Europeans– have opted for Obama's charisma. To lend dialogue, multiculturalism and the battle against climate change a face. For change!”

The Irish Times was also certain on 20 October that Obama cannot really lose: "He has pulled ahead deservedly in the central arguments over policy, temperament and ability to lead.” The Süddeutsche Zeitung, too, was of the opinion on 17 October that the last three television debates have done nothing to change the fundamental dynamics of the US presidential election: "Unless something unexpected happens – the candidate makes an inexplicable error, there is a terrorist attack or a miracle economic recovery overnight – the United States is facing the dawning of a new era: The Americans will show the world that their country still has the strength for renewal, even in a crisis, or precisely because there is a crisis."

Why is Obama so successful?

Obama's success comes from many sources. Here, too, the European press readily provides answers. On 30 October the Spanish newspaper El Correo praised the use of new media channels such as Youtube and online networks like Facebook as part of Obama's election campaign strategy.

Obama's skills as an orator often receives praise. Many see him as an exceptional politician who follows in the footsteps of black civil rights campaigners. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung declared in its Sunday edition on 17 February: "The combination of rousing rhetoric and sober facts can also be found in the substance of Obama's campaign. In all his public appearances Obama shows intellectual open-mindedness paired with a love of detail.” Even before his speech at the Siegessäule in Berlin on 24 July, where Obama pledged stronger trans-Atlantic dialogue, he had won the hearts of the Europeans by paying tribute to the growing international influence of Europe, by taking the old continent seriously. As Willem Post put it on 24 October in the Dutch daily De Volkskrant: "The fact that Obama is currying favour in this part of the world has to do with the changed image of Europe in the United States. In recent years the United States has come up against its limits in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on other international issues like the Israeli-Palestinian problem and the confrontation with Iran over Uranium. ... America needs its old NATO allies again with which it shares common interests and to which it is bound by a community of values”.

Why has McCain failed?

McCain, by contrast, is a failure all the way down the line in the eyes of the European press. His strategy for dealing with the financial crisis is confusing, the Spanish newspaper Público argued, for instance, on 20 October 2008; instead of relying on his experience McCain broke off his election campaign in a panic, it said. In the Financial Times Clive Crook argued that McCain cannot win the votes of the political centre.

But precisely this, his conservatism, could ultimately prove to be an advantage, Dietmar Ostermann wrote in an analysis of McCain's shift to the right in the Frankfurter Rundschau on 27 October. "A large majority of US citizens now live in metropolitan regions and not in the country. It is there, in those endless out-of-town settlements of 'exburbs' and 'suburbs', that the election will be decided this time. Here the romantic myths of the pioneers no longer exert any pull. This America is more varied, more complex, more pragmatic, more tolerant. People in metropolitan regions want secure jobs, better schools, affordable healthcare. They are conservative or liberal, but they do not want the country to be split into 'real' and 'false' patriots. Yet McCain is relying on old formulas, on polarisation and on an election campaign based on splitting the country into two camps”. This polarisation, his clear-cut profile, could be his way to success with traditional voters.

The business newspaper the Financial Times, by contrast, on 17 October, believed McCain had little chance of winning, saying he had failed to gain political mileage out of the financial crisis and "has never spoken with confidence on economics ... Under mounting pressure, his campaign has increasingly come to rely on unappealing, ill-tempered attacks on Mr. Obama. There is an air of desperation. The odd result is that the young, untested, inexperienced candidate in this election seems better trusted to cope with the next few difficult years than his well-known, hitherto well-liked, battle-hardened rival”.

Powell for Obama

The fact that even Colin Powell, former US Foreign Minister under a Republican administration, is now rooting for Barack Obama is the Democrats' final trump card, Stefan Cornelius commented on 20 October in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. "The general and foreign affairs politician is for many Americans, despite his ignominious role in preparing for the second Iraq war, the incarnation of credibility. If Powell says 'vote for Obama', then many undecided voters from the political centre will vote for Obama”. The Stockholm evening newspaper Aftonbladet commented on 20 October: "Through his decision Powell has finally distanced himself from the road the United States has taken under Bush. Now it will become even more difficult to warn about Obama's lack of foreign policy credentials”. With so many aces up Obama's sleeve "only a miracle can save McCain”, the Polish weekly Fakt concurred laconically on 21 October.

The racism factor

Such a "miracle” might take the shape of an American population with a Christian background and traditional values finding themselves unable to vote for a black president. The liberal British newspaper The Independent wrote on 17 October: "Mr Obama would make history if he won. But his race is a completely unknown electoral quantity. Many suspect that voters are concealing the extent to which race will inform their choice”.

Racial ideology also played a role in a plot by American neo-Nazis to stage an attack on Obama, the son of a Kenyan father. They planned to stage a massacre at a school in Tennessee attended mainly by blacks and subsequently to shoot at the Democratic candidate. The Italian daily La Repubblica on 28 October placed the failed assassination attempt in the context of other political attacks in the United States, which have always played a key role in the suppression of the civil rights movement – from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King.

The British commentator Timothy Garton Ash analysed what he calls the US cultural war for the Spanish daily El País on 8 October. For him, this cultural war is not a war of skin colour but of ideas and values: "The Republican US presidential candidate McCain, who has admitted defeat on all fronts – from Iraq to the economy – is resorting to citing cultural otherness as a last weapon against Obama: together with Sarah Palin, the Katyusha rocket of red [Republican] America. ... For the world it is important that the United States end its cultural civil war as quickly as possible. Cultural and ethnic questions belong in the private sphere. The government's job is only to create a liberal context in which men and women can decide freely about private issues”. "If America managed to elect a black”, Gad Lerner wrote in the same newspaper on 30 October 2008, "the world would learn a lesson: this would be the 'end of racist ideology'”.

Nikola Richter

Nikola Richter, born 1976 in Bremen, lives in Berlin. She works as an editor for euro|topics and as a writer. Her latest publications were "Schluss ...
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