Women have voted in greater proportions than men for almost three decades. But the hard-fought candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as the first woman on a Republican presidential ticket have put new cultural and ideological elements more fully into play.
Senator Obama is the first presidential candidate to shun public financing, confident that he can keep reeling in small and large donations from his army of givers, which now numbers more than 2.5 million people. Obama has more than $US77 million in cash on hand, according to aides, and will seek to press home his advantage.
Senator Obama knew what he was getting when he picked Senator Biden: A veteran of six terms in the Senate, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, an Irish Catholic with working-class roots, a guy who had twice been tested in the arena of presidential politics. And a human verbal wrecking crew.
Senator John McCain’s choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate and the resulting jolt of energy among Republican voters appear to have caught Senator Barack Obama and his advisers by surprise and added to concern that the Obama campaign was not pushing back hard enough against Republican attacks.
Democrats have warned that Ms. Palin, a first-term governor, is woefully inexperienced and is not qualified to serve a “heartbeat” away from the presidency. In her first interview for over two weeks, the 44-year-old mother of five struggled, when asked her views of the Bush doctrine, which states the United States will mount a preemptive strike against a looming threat if it deems itself at risk.
The upcoming interview sessions, the first in two weeks, could be the first test of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s ability to parry substantive questions on foreign and domestic policy, and as she flew back to Alaska on Wednesday, she brought with her a squad of Senator McCain’s top policy advisers to help her prepare.
Tellingly, the McCain campaign has announced no large rallies with Senator McCain alone, and a senior McCain aide said Wednesday that the campaign was considering keeping Gov. Palin and Mr. McCain together for appearances more often than is usual for running mates — perhaps more so than any ticket in recent times.
Senator Obama’s advisors said that combative edge was essential to blunt any progress Senator McCain was making as he sought to encroach on Mr. Obama’s trademark message of change. But Mr. Obama’s remarks are curiously reminiscent — right down to that mocking tone — to words he spoke nearly a year ago when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly tried to swipe the mantle of change and Mr. Obama demonstrated a fight that many had doubted he could muster.
Were he to become president, Senator Obama would retain the emphasis on the high standards and accountability of President Bush’s education law, No Child Left Behind. But he would rewrite the federal law to offer more help to high-need schools, especially by training thousands of new teachers to serve in them, his campaign said. He would also expand early childhood education, which he believes gets more bang for the buck than remedial classes for older students.
Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are confronting a sharply abbreviated general election campaign season, the product of the late nominating conventions and a boom in early voting in tightly contested states. This shortened timetable is forcing both campaigns to recalibrate the pace of television advertisements, accelerate voter turnout operations and tailor the candidates’ traveling schedules to accommodate states where voting is imminent.