This week a London-based friend emailed me a link to the "Yes We Can" video which is proving to be a powerful tool in the Barack Obama campaign.
He was in fact the third person to suggest I check out the video. Ten days ago a friend in the United States sent me the link as did a Dublin colleague a week ago. All of this is testament to the quality of the video itself, the power of YouTube and to the significance of viral marketing in the current US presidential election.
The music video was produced by the singer Will.i.am, frontman of the band the Black Eyed Peas. It features Obama's Yes We Can speech which he delivered in New Hampshire in early January. Will.i.am splices Obama's speaking with footage of others singing or reciting extracts from the speech. Among the Hollywood names who signed up for the recording session were John Legend, Scarlett Johansson and Herbie Hancock. The video has already attracted more than five million hits on YouTube and it was while watching it for the first time that I began to appreciate the real significance of what is going on in US politics. The video, like the entire Obama campaign, was powerful, inspiring, forwardlooking and uplifting.
I have always felt that Hillary Clinton would and should be the Democratic Party candidate for this US presidential election. While Obama's advances in the last two weeks give cause for concern that Hillary might not make it, I remain convinced that she would be the better choice.
The world is currently an unsafe place. The international political and economic order is volatile; the planet itself is endangered. Although the US alone cannot and should not solve the world's problems, many in the rest of the world hope that once President Bush has left the White House, they can look once more to Washington for the leadership needed to tackle global challenges.
The US itself remains exposed to the risk of further terrorist attacks. It needs to disengage from wars in two Middle Eastern countries. The domestic economy is in or teetering on the brink of recession while the subprime mortgages crisis has left both the US financial system and the US property market in a precarious state. This is not the time for the United States to experiment with nubile or naïve leadership.
Obama didn't have the whirlwind success that some commentators were breathlessly predicting on the eve of the New Hampshire primaries. He also failed to achieve some of the big state victories on Super Tuesday that some of the same pundits foresaw. Yet his advance has been solid and the succession of victories he has enjoyed in recent primaries means that he is now ahead in the delegate count.
Clinton fans are left hoping that victories in Texas and Ohio in the first week of March will turn things around. The demographics are favourable for her in these states. Polls currently gives her a 20-point lead in Ohio, and a 14-point lead in Texas.
She will need decisive wins there and later in Pennsylvania in order to avoid defeat or a messy victory delivered by the votes of super delegates or after rows about whether delegations from Florida and Louisiana will be entitled to vote.
The difficulty for the Hillary campaign is that it is hard to run against optimism. The Obama appeal is to the emotional rather then the thinking side of the voter's brain. What he has been most successful at is skilful oratory but his speeches, while well-crafted and delivered, contain little substance.
He talks a lot about the need for America to "turn the page" but as of now the new page to which he would have the country turn is blank.
Clinton has proved more substantial in all the debates between the Democratic candidates. She has better developed policy positions. She clearly has a more substantial political CV, not just because she was a formidable First Lady in a two-term presidency and a six-term governorship but because as a two-term Senator she has earned her stripes on both domestic and international affairs.
By comparison, Obama has had just eight years as a state senator in Illinois and three years as a member of the US senate, the last two of which he has spent primarily focused on his presidential election bid. His campaign, like the Yes We Can music video, is stylish, hip, entertaining and ripe with star quality, but it lacks substance. His lyrics are inspiring and uplifting but they are also very vague.
Frank Luntz did a focus group of Democratic primary voters in Wisconsin for Fox News on Wednesday night. A clear majority of those who took part said they were supporting Obama, but when asked to name one Obama accomplishment they could do no more than suggest that his candidacy itself and the success of his campaign was an accomplishment.
His candidacy and campaign are quite impressive; all the more so when one realises that voters are supporting him despite the fact that they cannot recall anything substantial he achieved before he became a presidential candidate.
As of now Obama is polling stronger than Clinton in a potential head to head against McCain.
However, if Obama were the Democratic candidate then across the long hot summer months the Republican Party will seek to recast his positioning. They too will highlight his inexperience and vagueness and if that doesn't work for them, they'll turn nasty.
Of course, the Republican Party attack machine would enjoy fixing their artillery on Clinton more, but after almost two decades of doing so there is not much ground they can make attacking her all over again.
Pollsters say that opinions on Clinton among the US electorate are largely fixed while those on Obama are more volatile. There is much about Obama which remains untested and unknown.