Much has been made about the impact of the internet, but the most significant moments were televised, writes Noel Whelan
LIKE THE majority of Irish people, I wanted Barack Obama to win this week's US election, but I was nervous on result night that his predicted victory might not materialise. However, I knew it was safe to go to bed at 2.25am on Wednesday morning when Fox News predicted that Obama would win Ohio. The Ohio projection came just as Karl Rove, twice chief campaign strategist for George Bush, was laying out for Fox viewers how, with Pennsylvania having declared for Obama, it was near impossible for McCain to garner enough electoral college votes to win. Ohio put the matter beyond doubt.
Thanks to digital television, I and other US politics junkies had direct access to the US 24-hour news channels for the past 18 months. While it played havoc with sleep patterns, it was fascinating to watch the same news coverage as American voters, day in day out.
Fox News, the Murdoch-owned virulently Republican channel, has been compulsive viewing and especially enjoyable in the early hours of Wednesday as the full scale of the Obama victory became apparent.
It reminded me of the small number of occasions in my lifetime when Ireland beat England at soccer. When watching RTÉ coverage and Dunphy and Giles punditry, I couldn't resist occasionally flicking to the BBC to see how English commentators were coping with their team's defeat. It was always entertaining to watch them struggle to explain away the result, citing bad refereeing or player injury. Similarly, Fox News, having realised its candidate was set to lose, gave prominence in recent weeks to allegations of voter registration fraud and so on in a transparent effort to find micro-level explanations for an Obama victory.
Obama's success has been extensively analysed on both sides of the Atlantic, but it is worth noting that the victory was quite narrow. While securing a landslide in the electoral college, Obama's popular vote advantage was 6 to 7 per cent and his election comes at the end of, arguably, the most disastrous Republican presidency in 100 years and at the height of an economic crisis.
Obama's real achievement was winning the Democratic nomination. Obama has amazing qualities as a candidate and his campaign was awesome, particularly in its capacity to communicate with and raise money from hundreds of thousands of voters online.
However, the most significant strategic decision he made was to contest at this time, and it took courage to take on the apparently invincible Hillary Clinton campaign.
There has been much hype about the impact of the internet on this campaign, but the most significant moments were televised moments, most of which involved Obama himself delivering speeches.
While hundreds of thousands may have seen Obama's New Hampshire primary "yes we can" speech on YouTube, it was the fact that it was broadcast live on television to millions which gave his campaign real momentum.
For me however, the most significant moment was not an Obama speech, but rather Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama three weeks ago on America's flagship TV news programme, Meet the Press.
The endorsement by Powell, a former secretary of state in a Republican administration and former chairman of the joint chiefs, was always going to be significant.
However, what made it a truly decisive moment was the fact that Powell delivered it on America's most-watched TV news programme, did it eloquently and in a manner that crystallised all the reasons why moderate Republicans and independents should vote for Obama.
Powell gave four key reasons why he had decided to support Obama and, in the process, delivered a devastating critique of the McCain campaign.
First, Powell said he was troubled by the negative and narrow tone that McCain had allowed his campaign to develop. He expressed particular disappointment at the preposterous insinuation that because Obama once served on a committee with Bill Ayers, he was linked to domestic terrorist dealings.
Second, Powell pointed out that while he had no doubt that John McCain, Barack Obama, or indeed Joe Biden, were qualified to be president, he had serious reservations about Sarah Palin and drove home the point by saying that the Palin choice raised real concern about McCain's decision-making.
Third, he expressed concern that McCain did not appear to grasp the banking and financial crisis and had no coherent plan to deal with the long-term economic consequences. By comparison, he said Obama had responded with a steadiness and intellectual vigour, which augured well for his approach to the presidency.
However, Powell's primary reason for choosing Obama was that while he admired McCain as a maverick and could see a McCain presidency delivering change, he felt the United States needed not only incremental change, but real transformation. Obama, Powell said, was such a transformational figure in part because he had the ability to inspire.
I am a Hillary Clinton fan. For that reason and, because I tend to assess politics with the thinking rather than the emotive side of the brain, I had, at least until I watched Powell's endorsement, been an Obama sceptic.
As he prepares to take up the US presidency, Barack Obama faces challenges that could not have been imagined when he declared his candidacy 18 months ago. Here's hoping Powell's assessment of Obama's potential is correct and that he lives up to the promise. We could all do with something to believe in during these difficult times.
