The Lustig US election survival guide: update
Five months ago yesterday, a young, relatively unknown junior senator from Illinois called Barack Obama won the Iowa Democratic party caucus. The former First Lady Hillary Clinton came third.
Five months from today, US voters will choose their next President. In other words, we are now exactly half way through what's turning out to be an extraordinarily gripping 2008 US election cycle.
Four years ago, I was in Boston, when that same Barack Obama spoke at the Democratic Party convention and referred to himself as "a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too." I doubt that he believed then that the place for him might be in the White House.
But now even the , not normally enamoured of Democratic party presidential candidates, refers to him in the same breath as what it calls America's two foremost cultural icons, Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey.
So here's what you need to keep an eye on over the coming weeks and months.
1. Hillary Clinton: will she throw her full support behind Obama? (My guess is Yes.) Will he appoint her as his vice-presidential running mate? (My guess is No.) Will some of her campaign strategists and fund-raisers now join his team, and if they do, will that cause tensions? (Yes, and Yes.)
2. John McCain: will the spotlight now shine on him, having left him pretty much in the shadows during the Obama-Clinton slugfest? (Yes.) Will he start attacking Obama as an inexperienced liberal elitist, out of touch with mainstream America? (Is the Pope Catholic?)
3. The rumour mill: Watch the bloggers. Some will peddle rumours, which may or may not be true, but which will be designed to derail campaigns and damage candidates' reputations. It'll work both ways, and it'll be nasty. Both sides are already whispering that there's "stuff" waiting to come out. Ignore them until they either put up or shut up.
4. The debates: no US Presidential campaign is complete without televised debates. Obama has already done countless ones with Hillary Clinton, in some of which he didn't do terribly well. McCain has done fewer, and is a far less impressive public speaker. Does it matter? (Yes.)
5. The wives: The media seem to think that both Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain will provide good stories. Mrs Obama had a tough childhood on the South side of Chicago; Mrs McCain was born into a wealthy family in Arizona. There's plenty of scope for pot-stirring.
But maybe you're not as enthralled by all this as I am. (After all, it's only the leadership of the most economically and militarily dominant power on earth that's at stake.) In which case, take a break ... and I'll bring you up to date at the end of August, when Senator Obama, the first black candidate to be nominated for the US Presidency by a major political party, will address the Democratic party convention. Given his past record as a speech-maker, you won't want to miss it.
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