Time for some Pal-a-in Speaking

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With Obama so clearly ahead in all the polls, following the race has lost a little of the adrenalin.

Ok - I admit it.I am a complete sucker for closely-fought races.

Nobody watches India beating Hong Kong at the Asia Cup, or for that matter Brazil whooping India in the soccer play-offs, it's no fun to speculate on a blue-chip share (present crisis notwithstanding), and it's certainly unexciting to cover an election with only one candidate likely to win.

Which is why the US Presidential elections are already beginning to pale a bit - with Obama so clearly ahead in all the polls, following the race has lost a little of the adrenalin. I mean the man seems to be leading in every conceivable voting group I can find - besides the double-digit leads he has in most states nationwide amongst generic average-Americans, there're the African Americans, the Hispanic Americans, the Asian Americans (McCain leads only amongst Vietnamese Americans), and of course, Indian-Americans (53-13% for Obama!). Gay young men, Old white women, rich guys, twenty-year-olds on the dole, and every one else, when surveyed, say their vote will go to Obama. The Pew research centre poll now gives Obama a 16 point lead over his Republican rival.

There's also official, published endorsements- from trade unions coast to coast, to 65 Nobel laureates, from a 106 year old American nun in Rome (not kidding), to the American Nurses Association, to most if not all of Hollywood they're all going Obama's way. McCain's big endorsement this week came from the Al Qaeda website Al Hasbah, and if he's feeling bad about that let's remember the Ku Klux Klan Imperial wizard was reported to have endorsed Obama early in the Democrat race, saying anything was better than that "crazy assed bitch" Hillary Clinton (both reports, incidentally, were denied).

And then there's the curious American tradition of newspapers endorsing a presidential candidate. I mean, aren't journalists supposed to help people make informed choices, but not actually make the choices for them, or take sides? But in the U.S. they all do just that, and everyone down from the New York Times and the Washington Post have published endorsing editorials for Mr. O. As of October 28th, Obama leads 222 newspaper endorsements to McCain's 93. And it doesn't help that Obama's young and handsome, a great writer, and an electric speaker. Or that he is going to turn a historic page in US race relations- and try to reverse all that's gone wrong in the world in the past 8 years. That he has a beautiful brilliant wife who's a better dancer than he is. No sir, the odds just keep growing. The kids are perfect, the record is spotless, and the inauguration tuxedo should be neatly pressed by now.

And if it isn't, his advisers need only look at the latest CNN poll of polls (average of several national polls) that puts Obama's lead at 8 points with Obama winning the support of more than half all American voters (51-43%). Remember, George Bush was only 2 points ahead of John Kerry at this stage in the race 4 years ago.

I have only one question there--- what on earth is that 43% thinking? With everything the pundits and the journalists are saying; with the economy going to pieces one-mortgage-at-a-time, and the world going to bits one Iraq-battalion-at-a-time, how can 43% of the people surveyed even admit that they could vote for anything other than Obama? Aren't they reading the polls, for heaven's sake?

Or is it that, in getting caught up with the flow, the journalists are forgetting there is a 43% at all. And forgetting that despite the election's assured results- we still have a job to do covering the race. The same Pew Research voter's poll also did a survey of articles in the mainstream media- and found that in the past six weeks, six out of 10 stories about McCain were negative, as opposed to Obama, with less than 3 out of 10 negative stories, and more than 3 out of 10 positive. McCain's positive stories? About 2 in 20.

And what about coverage of Alaska's well-heeled Governor v/s Joe (not the plumber, the vice-presidential candidate)? Let's not even go there. Clearly kicking the underdog when he is down is above board when there's a landslide in the offing. Who says journalists are supposed to be the trend buckers, the people who see the nuances, and report both sides of the story, no matter how hard to see one side is.

There are some dangers though: lets not forget when the media rides the popular wave for one candidate- it makes it that much harder to criticize the candidate after he takes office (remember George Bush, in fact remember George Bush a lot).And finally, calling an election before it is done has left many of us here in India slightly red-faced in the past: 2004 general elections, the Mayawati majority in U.P.(most predicted a hung assembly), and the scale of the Modi majority in Gujarat this year are all worth remembering too.

The best thing about democracy, said some wise person, is the uncertainty. Whatever the poll figures right now, you can only be 100% sure who's won after the final vote is done and counted. It's more fun that way.