The Race for the White House - Soma Chakravarty

Perhaps the most momentous event that is attracting global attention at present is the race for the White House, which may well be considered the most significant among electoral contests in world politics. The US Presidential Elections determine who will be serving as the most powerful politician in the world for the four-year term starting at midday on Inauguration Day, which is January 20 of the year after the election.  This single election, in many ways, determines the fate of world politics and economy for the next four years, depending upon the new leader’s policies, and is therefore equally important for both friends and foes of the United States.

The elections, conducted by the various states and not the federal government, are held on the first Tuesday in November, though the electoral process begins almost a year prior to the actual election, and is quite a complicated one. 

Perhaps the most momentous event that is attracting global attention at present is the race for the White House, which may well be considered the most significant among electoral contests in world politics. The US Presidential Elections determine who will be serving as the most powerful politician in the world for the four-year term starting at midday on Inauguration Day, which is January 20 of the year after the election.  This single election, in many ways, determines the fate of world politics and economy for the next four years, depending upon the new leader’s policies, and is therefore equally important for both friends and foes of the United States.

The elections, conducted by the various states and not the federal government, are held on the first Tuesday in November, though the electoral process begins almost a year prior to the actual election, and is quite a complicated one. 

The Primaries
The presidential election in the United States follows a series of presidential primary elections and caucuses. While the primary elections are run by the state and local governments, the caucuses are private events administered by the political parties. The primaries constitute the process that determines which candidate will be supported by delegates of that state as presidential nominee at the next stage – that is, at the party national conventions.

To elaborate further, in order to be the presidential nominee of a party, a candidate requires the support of a majority of all party delegates at the national conventions held in late summer. How the delegates will vote at the conventions is what is decided in the state primaries.

In every state primary, registered voters vote for a candidate running for Presidential nomination.
In a “closed” primary, a voter may vote only in the primary for the party with which he is registered. (That is, a voter registered as a Republican voter can participate only in the Republican primaries.)
In an “open” primary, he may participate in any of the party primaries regardless of affiliation, but he can choose only one.

In a rare “blanket” primary, registered voters can participate in all party primaries.
Based on these votes, the winner is decided.

Now, the winning candidate within a party will have certain delegates “pledged” to him from a state.  The guidelines or method of awarding delegates are decided by the party and may differ even within a party from state to state. In some states, a winning candidate may be awarded delegates based on the proportion of votes received by him in the primary elections, while in another state the same candidate may enjoy the winner-take-all policy. To exemplify, suppose voters from any state X express support for candidate A of the Democratic party. According to party rules in state X, A may be awarded all Democrat delegates from that state. However in another state Y, if A wins 75% of the votes, party rules may dictate that only 75% of delegates from Y will vote for him at the national Democrat convention.
In the national conventions, the candidate receiving maximum delegate support is formally elected as the presidential candidate of the party. As is obvious, who the presidential nominee will be is usually well evident even before the conventions are held. However, in some states, party leaders may select a few unpledged delegates – often called superdelegates – who may vote for any candidate in the national convention and are not bound by the results of primary/caucus voting in the state. In case of a very narrow margin or edge in the primaries, the votes of the superdelegates have a strong role in the conventions. However, in some cases, superdelegates also reveal their allegiances beforehand, so that the results at the convention are no surprise really.

The Actual Presidential Election
Once the Presidential candidates or nominees have been declared at the party convention, the winner chooses a “running mate” to stand for the post of Vice-president. Perhaps the most interesting and remarkable aspect of the process is how all divisions or factions that manifested themselves within a political party during the primaries disappear at this stage; the entire party now works united to get their nominee elected.

The election of the president of the United States is governed by Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution. Individual citizens do not have the constitutional right to vote for the President. Thus the president and vice president are not chosen by direct popular vote but by United States Electoral College electors, who are selected by voters from each state in the country. So in the final phase, citizen voters will actually cast their vote in favour of a block of electors from the state who are designated to choose the President or Vice President. Each state is apportioned a number of electors equal to the total number of their Congressional delegation.

The nominee who receives a majority of electoral votes for president – 270 for 2008 — is the President-elect  and the individual who receives a majority of electoral votes for vice president is the vice President-elect of the United States. Thus it is possible that the candidate who enjoys popular support may not emerge the president-elect as electoral votes decide the final results.

Although rare, in the event of no presidential candidate receiving a majority in the Electoral College, the president-elect will be selected by a vote of the House of Representatives, with each state receiving a single vote; the vice president will be selected by a vote of the Senate. Nevertheless, the votes of the Electoral College have to be certified by the Congress, which is the final judge of the electors.

Presidential elections 2008
The 56th presidential and vice presidential election of the United States has been scheduled for November 4, 2008.  It will coincide with the 2008 Senate elections for 34 members. There will also be elections for all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, and gubernatorial elections, as well as many state and local elections.

Current Forerunners for the Post of President
Democratic Party
Hillary Rodham Clinton is a former Senator from New York and former First Lady of the United States. Born on October 26, 1947, in Illinois, if elected, Clinton would be the first female president.
Barack Obama is a U.S. Senator from Illinois. Born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. If elected, he would become the first African-American President of the United States. A “draft Obama” movement began with his well-received keynote address in the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Obama was the featured speaker at Iowa Senator Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry, a political event favored by presidential hopefuls in the lead-up to the first caucus in Iowa. He was endorsed by talk show host Oprah Winfrey in 2006.

Republican Party
John McCain, a Senator from Arizona, was born August 29, 1936, in the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone. Often characterized as a Republican maverick in the Senate, he is well-known for his failed attempt against George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000.

The 2008 Primaries
January
The beginning of the year saw support for Mike Huckabee (Republican) and Barack Obama (Democrat) rise, leaving Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton from their respective parties behind in the polls in Iowa. John McCain of the Republican party ousted Rudy Guiliani and Mitt Romney as the front-runner in New Hampshire.
Obama was suddenly the new front runner in New Hampshire. The Clinton Campaign was struggling. Though Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary by a couple of points she was as much as twelve points behind in opinion polls on the day of the primary. McCain won the Republican primary.
While the Republicans based their race in Michigan and Florida, the Democrats focused on Nevada and South Carolina, which were given special permission to have early contests. In South Carolina, Obama got 55% of the vote. McCain managed a  victory in South Carolina, setting him up for a larger and more important victory in Florida soon after.

February
The month of February saw celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy and Stevie Wonder make appearances on the UCLA campus to show support for Barack Obama in the Democrat contest, thereby increasing his poll numbers and putting him only 2% behind Clinton; however, he ended up losing California by 10%. Analysts cited surprisingly large Latino voter turnout as the deciding factor.

Super Tuesday
February 5, 2008 had 24 states and American Samoa holding either caucuses or primary elections for one or both parties, the largest-ever simultaneous number of U.S. presidential primary elections.
This election had Democrats in a virtual tie, and John McCain of the Republican Party was just short of clinching the Republican nomination.

Then, on February 9, Louisiana and Washington voted for both parties, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands voted for the Democrats and Kansas for the Republicans. Obama swept all four Democratic contests, as well as the Maine caucuses the next day, and Huckabee of the Republican Party also came out on top in Kansas, winning by a greater percentage. The District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia voted for both parties on February 12 in the so-called Potomac primary. Obama won all three for the Democrats (giving him eight consecutive victories after Super Tuesday) and McCain took all three for the Republicans.
Obama carried both Hawaii and Wisconsin, the last two states that voted for the Democrats in February.
Wisconsin and Washington (primary) voted for the Republicans on February 19th; John McCain won these states. The Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico closed February for the Republicans.|

March
In the month of March, American Samoa voted on March 1 for the Republicans.  March 4 was a red letter day as the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio, along with Rhode Island and Vermont, voted for both the parties. On that day there was a surprise upset for Barack Obama as Hillary Clinton carried Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island in the Democratic primaries, thus saving her from pulling out of the campaign. John McCain clinched the Republican nomination after sweeping all four primaries, Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, thus putting him over the top of 1,191 delegates required to win the nomination. Mike Huckabee finally conceded the race to McCain, making him the Republican presidential candidate.
Wyoming votes for the Democrats and Guam votes for the Republicans on March 8, with Mississippi voting on March 11. The final primaries and caucuses are to be held from April through June 2008

April
On April 22, Pennsylvania, the only state to vote in April, will hold a primary for both the parties. Indiana and North Carolina will have their primaries on May 6. Nebraska’s Republican primary will be held on May 13, as will the West Virginia primary for Democrats. While Kentucky and Oregon will hold primaries for both the parties on May 20, Idaho votes for Republicans only on May 27.

Finally, the primary season will end in June with contests in New Mexico (Republican), Montana (Democratic), and South Dakota (both parties) on June 3 and the last primary in Puerto Rico on June 7th for the Democrats.

India’s Stakes
Now, let us examine the stakes that are involved for India in the forthcoming US presidential elections. As one politician put it, ‘countries do not have friends/enemies, they only have interests to protect.’ Therefore let us consider the issues involved which affect the current Indo-US relationship.

Nuclear Fuel – The most contentious issue between the two countries is that of nuclear fuel. The Bush administration is keen to provide India access to the vast nuclear fuel supplies of the US, provided certain conditions are met by the former. The Left parties in India are up in arms against the UPA government over these conditions and allege that agreeing to them might affect the sovereignty of our country. However, it is undeniable that India’s requirement for energy in the coming years will be high in order to meet domestic demand and sustain economic growth. With oil prices hovering at historic highs and chances of finding any substitute source of energy looking slim, it is apparent that India does not have too many alternatives apart from acceding to pre-conditions set by the US. Should the next US government be a Republican one, theoretically there should not be too many objections to the process. But should there be a Democratic Party candidate in power, the process will be revisited in the US, since the Bush government had not considered the objections raised by the Democratic Party during the negotiations of the process. India being a non-signatory to NPT (Non Proliferation Treaty) will probably not be favoured by the Democratic Party candidate in that case. Therefore, from this perspective alone, it would be ideal for India to have John McCain as the president of the US.

Outsourcing – The economic growth of India has been driven to a large extent by the IT sector and the target market has by and large been the USA. Hence, outsourcing issues are a hot topic of debate in the current presidential election, with candidates claiming to stop outsourcing American jobs to locations outside the country. However, these presidential candidates often overlook the fact that outsourcing decisions are purely commercial and market driven. Globalization has somewhat made geographical barriers redundant and the IT revolution has contributed a lot to that effect. Though Barack Obama is quite vociferous against the process, it will be difficult for any candidate to bring about changes in legislation and prohibit outsourcing altogether. In any case, Hillary Clinton and John McCain have not expressed their displeasure with the outsourcing process.

War on terror and relationship with Pakistan: America’s war on terror in Afghanistan and its repercussions in Pakistan have had a positive influence on the terrorism scenario in India. Earlier Kashmiri militants were getting moral and logistical support from across the border, but at the moment, efforts in those quarters are being expended to fight NATO forces in Afghanistan and the military in Pakistan. There have been stray cases of terrorism in India but by and large, Kashmir has remained calm. John McCain, an ardent supporter of the Iraq war, will probably decide to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan for some more years till the situation improves in the two regions, but the Democratic Party candidates if elected might pull out troops from both places in a phased manner once they come to power. What effect that has on Indian interests remains to be seen.

The author is a freelance journalist.

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