Wall-to-wall campaigning

So we love our politics at home. We treat it as a bit of blood sport. Our general election campaigns normally last about three to four weeks. Indeed, if it's of four weeks duration we consider that a long campaign…a life-time sentence.

So just imagine what it must be like for the voters in the United States.

This presidential race has, believe it or not, gone on for almost two years...well certainly for almost a year. A whole year!

And what's even worse, or better depending on your point of view, is the amount of television coverage of the campaign.

It's wall-to-wall and I mean wall-to-wall. It appears to be never ending, relentless. Switch on the telly at any time of the day and you'll see John McCain, Sarah Palin, Joe Biden or Barack Obama looking out at you and delivering the same speech they've delivered for the past month.

God, if I hear John McCain utter the words 'yes my friends' again...I'll...

And as for Barack Obama talking about the need for change...please please don't say it again Barack.

Oh then there are the opinion polls. Everyday, every hour there seems to be a new poll - national polls, state-wide polls. Each time you wake up there is a tsunami of polls and within a few minutes of the arrival of the new poll there is someone there to spin, and I mean spin, an interpretation of that poll.

Most television stations have their own Democratic and Republican Party spinners or pundits and they'd put the Irish versions of party commentators, or pundits into the ha'penny place.

In many instances there is no such thing as balance.

But for all the madness of this election there is a serious side to what's happening in this presidential race.

The voters across this vast country seem to be engaged as never before in the electoral process.

Already it's estimated that some 30 million people have cast their ballots in early voting in some 32 states where early voting is allowed. So no such thing as voter turn off in this election.

The television images are already remarkable. Long lines of people, young and old waiting patiently to cast their ballot in, yes wait for it, the word historic, a historic election that could change the face of American politics for ever.

Sometimes we can be rightly cynical of the electoral process, and sometimes the word historic can be over used.

But what's going to happen next Tuesday in America is going to be truly historic in American politics and also for the rest of the world.

Posted at 10:41AM Nov 01, 2008