ELECTION IN A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY

It is coming down to crunch time in the U.S. presidential election, and the nation is in the grasp of incredible uncertainty. The mind numbing occupation of Iraq still continues, and neither of the two leading candidates will say exactly when this insanity will end; only ambiguous time tables , or time horizons, are floated out there, with caveats of “when conditions on the ground make withdrawal possible” or “when the mission is brought to completion”.

For John McCain it is all about winning, or at least not losing. A part of the Arizona Senator believes that with enough fire power, boots on the ground, and bribery of important local militias, the situation can be made manageable.

For Barack Obama, the Illinois Senator tries to assume the moral high ground by saying he was against this war from the start. But as veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk has noted: “what does Obama want to do with his soldiers once he withdraws them from Iraq? He’s going to send the poor devils back to Afghanistan, that graveyard of foreign armies where the Taliban were so utterly defeated in 2001 that they are now stronger than ever.”

Uncertainty has become the lay of the land. The economic troubles, so exacerbated by petrol inflation, has lead to massive job loss, home evictions and bankruptcies. What were once seen as aberrations, have now become standard signs of the spiraling down economy. The main response from Senator McCain to the oil crisis is to drill drill drill! Senator Obama speaks of a windfall profits tax on Big Oil, and even mentioned swift boat funder T. Boone Pickens, who said: “this is a crisis we can not drill our way out of.”

How any of these suggestions will lower the price of gasoline is any body’s guess. The higher the price of gasoline, the more the profits of Big Oil increase. Exxon-Mobil’s recent quarterly earnings were the largest in history. Senator Obama mentions this, but how he would be able to get taxes on Big Oil through the legislature remains to be seen.

Then there is the business of the election itself. The McCain campaign have made it their number one focus to try an impugn Obama’s character as much as possible, by any means necessary, so as to plant xenophobic seeds of doubt that they hope will grow in the minds of the electorate, until they become convinced that the ambitious graduate of Harvard Law is not “one of us” and not ready to lead.

It has also been noted that black Americans are uneasy about Barack Obama’s candidacy. Not because they don’t support him, they do. But there is an uncertainty among plenty of folks, who have difficulty imagining him actually accomplishing this historic task, and fear their hearts will be broken, by hook or crook, or something even worse.

One thing that seems to have disappeared is the idea of any kind of landslide victory. That is why some democrats say that Senator Obama should choose Senator Clinton for the vice presidential ticket. Hard core Obamakins would howl of course, but they may just have to get over it.

Historically it should be remembered that John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were not good friends, when he was picked as JFK’s running mate. And it should also be remembered, that with Lyndon on the ticket, Kennedy won the state of Texas. Without winning that state, in that very close election, John Kennedy would have never become the President. It just might be that Senator Obama faces a similar dilemma in this election.

It is worth noting that Hillary Clinton won the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries, among others. She proved to be strong among older white women in those states. These are votes that Barack Obama will certainly need, in the event of a very close election.

This all may seem strange to those who bought into the idea of a new kind of politics. But Senator Obama has proven, with many recent reversals in policy, to be in fact, a flexible, pragmatic politician. Conventional wisdom has it that he will pick for VP a governor or senator from a state that seems to be in play. But many of the people glowingly mentioned by the mainstream news are somewhat unknown to the general public. By contrast, everybody knows Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.