Hold on as the world weathers the real US Presidential election

Jun 11 2008 by Bill Gleeson, Liverpool Daily Post

IT’S been a long haul through the first phase of the US Presidential Election process, but now, at long last, with the Primaries behind us, the real contest is getting under way.

Like Atlantic weather systems, what the US enjoys one day we’re likely to see within the week.

It’s true to say many of the American-inspired trappings of our modern lives take a little longer to take hold over here, but, like wet fronts in winter, they have a habit of rolling in whether we like it or not. The 2008 Presidential Campaign has already made its mark in history. The protracted struggle for nominations has been followed, in minute detail, by a media machine driven by a high-octane belief that this is the only story that readers, listeners and viewers are interested in. Or, more accurately, there is a belief by some of the more pompous commentators it is the only story these people should be interested in.

Aspects of the campaign have been fascinating, though not necessarily the policy debates or inter-party sniping, but subjects like the use of technology by the leading candidates; the ways in which they raise funds (and campaigning US-style does not come cheap) and the way in which leading lights like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (and those around them) seek to man- age their profiles with attention to detail. The web has become a massive weapon in their arsenal.

On one officially endorsed Obama site, there is a line-by-line rebuttal of any media coverage that may be construed as slightly negative.

It’s as if the huge party machines have grudgingly accepted they need the media circus along for their roller coaster journey – but they reserve the right to re-write the correspondents’ reports if they don’t like what they see and hear.

Increasingly too, the candidates and their advisors are using web-based resources and other means of communication to correspond directly with voters – stripping out the layer of interpretation previously provided by the mass media.

Democratic nomination Obama has influenced his party his way. The hard part – influencing the rest of America – starts now.

MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group