A View Across the Pond

So far the presidential candidates’ race has all been about Clinton, Obama and the Democrats. The Republicans have had a few moments in the limelight, but overall we have been enthralled by these two brilliant performers. The Oscar nominations have just been announced today and it wouldn’t have come as a surprise if Clinton had been nominated as best crying actress or Obama as best male speech.

You can tell that things are hotting up in the Democrat’s presidential candidate race – the final two (John Edwards is surely out of it) – and it’s getting more and more personal. In a televised debate yesterday the two ripped in to each other as Edwards sat back and watched. But the two of them are going to have to take a back seat when the action moves to Florida. While we have been enthralled with the Democrat’s race, it is actually the Republican race that is even wider open and more interesting. Is the biggest gamble of all the primaries about to pay off for Rudy Giuliani?

Giuliani’s strategy had been to take a back seat in the other states and put everything he has in to Florida in the hope that that would be enough to get him the nomination. If he fails to win in Florida it is as good as over for him. And it looks like his gamble may not be paying off. A Rasmussen poll of voters throughout the US has him in joint fourth place on 10%, 15 points behind the front-runner, John McCain on 25%. Is this the end of the hero of New York? Well, to rub salt in the wound, even his home state of New York appear to have lost the faith. A Siena College poll puts him on 24%, 12 points behind Mr McCain on 36%. And the pollsters are rarely wrong on these sorts of things... d’oh!

So on to Florida where it seems we have no idea who will win as you can’t trust the polls, followed by Super Tuesday (or Tsunami Tuesday as it is known this year due to the number of primaries taking place) where we should be left with some answers to one of the most complex and long winded election processes in the world. It’s fun to watch, but thank God they do don’t do it here!