The US White House race tightened Saturday after new opinion polls suggested Barack Obama’s shine was wearing off and Republican John McCain was gaining ground in several important states.
The Illinois Democratic senator was greeted like a rock star by about 200 000 people in Berlin, as he continued his week-long foreign tour visiting crucial hotspots and important allies, demonstrating his foreign policy credentials in the race to be the next US president.
But voter polls inside the United States showed McCain chipping away at Obama’s lead in the race, which remains between one and six points.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll published Wednesday showed 55% of US voters considered Obama the riskiest choice for US president, while just 35% said the same of McCain.
The same poll found that 58% of voters identified more closely with McCain’s values and background, against 47% who said the same of Obama.
A separate study published on Thursday by Quinnipiac University showed McCain has gained ground in several key battleground states, and has overtaken Obama in Colorado.
The survey showed McCain close on Obama’s heels in Michigan and Minnesota, and other polls have put McCain ahead in some key states usually considered Democratic bastions, such as New Hampshire.
”Well, I do understand it,” Obama said in an interview with NBC news, about the number of people viewing him as a risky choice.
”I’m new to the scene. John McCain’s been around 25, 30 years in public life. I have just recently emerged in terms of our national politics. And so it’s not surprising that people would say that,” Obama said.
Obama’s fast journey to Iraq, Israel and Afghanistan, and then stops in Germany, France and, on Saturday, Britain, is aimed at showing he has presidential skills, meeting top leaders and pressing the Europeans to keep their troops in Afghanistan.
In an interview with CNN, he insisted he was not trying to interfere with the official US foreign policy.
However, he added, the principle idea he wanted to communicate in meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, was to make them understand ”that we’re going to have to have a sustained commitment in Afghanistan, that it’s not going to be a situation where we can do this on the cheap”.
While his reception at each stop on the trip has been generous, the polls showed his message was having less impact among some segments of the US voter population.
”To the extent that he’s acting as if he’s already president when the election is over 100 days away, and everyone expects it will be a very close race, raises questions about how in touch he is,” said Alex Conant, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.
”The fact that Obama is out of touch with voters … is certainly something we’ll continue to reiterate,” Conant added.
McCain’s continues to do well among his main supporters, white males and people over 65 — groups that are likely to turn out strongly for the November 4 presidential election.
Some experts say McCain’s down-home approach, which he worked on this week while visiting working-class voters and grocery stores in Pennsylvania and Ohio, seems to be bearing fruit, especially among American voters whose main concern is the economy and not the war in Iraq.
”With voters saying that the energy issue is now more important to their presidential vote than is the war in Iraq, this group represents an opportunity for the Republicans,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Obama, who returns to the United States on Saturday evening, sought to connect his popular position on the Iraq war with voters’ economic fears.
”If we have more Nato troops in Afghanistan, then that’s potentially fewer American troops over the long term,” he said on CNN.
”Which means that we’re spending fewer billions of dollars, which means we can invest those billions of dollars in making sure that we’re providing tax cuts to middle-class families who are struggling with higher gas prices,” he said. – AFP
