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 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 best way for Sarah Palin to fill in the gaps for the voting public would be exactly what the campaign of John McCain is avoiding — an honest news conference. Instead, Ms. Palin has been the bell-jar candidate, barnstorming safe crowds with socko punch lines and plans for a single interview on ABC News.
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.
The US electoral map is going to look very much like it has the past two elections. With the new-found enthusiasm in the Republican base, I think it is extremely unlikely that John McCain will lose much in the south. Barack Obama, on the other hand, will win the overwhelming majority of the northeast, and the Pacific coast.
Once Barack Obama had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate, the Republican Party realised that he had left a hole in electoral support that Sarah Palin could drive a truck through. In barely a week, John McCain has received a ten point bounce in the polls. Today’s Gallup poll has McCain four points ahead of Obama.
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.
The absence of heavy fire directed at Gov. Palin had been expected, given a reluctance by Senator Clinton to turn her campaigning into a battle between two women. Yet advisers to Senator Obama said Mrs. Clinton was nonetheless their best surrogate to counter the Republican ticket’s new drive to win over her former supporters.