20 theSun | THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6 2008

INTERVIEWS VIEWS

The upstart with a dream

LONDON: Two large gunships swooped
across the inky blackness of a Virginia sky as
Barack Obama’s motorcade drove into view.
He would not become president-elect for a
further 21 hours or so, but it already felt like
the torch had been handed over.
Knowing victory was within his grasp,
Obama dispensed with much of his stock
speech on Monday night, to reflect on the
vicissitudes of the campaign. A little more
than a year ago, he recalled, he was far
behind in the polls, unable even to secure the
ONE YEAR AGO, HE WAS BEHIND IN THE POLLS AND HIS CAMPAIGN WAS BEING
endorsement of many black politicians who
figured he could never beat Hillary Clinton. WRITTEN OFF. LEONARD DOYLE REPORTS ON HOW OBAMA UPSET THE ODDS
He was all but written off as a talented but
fundamentally inexperienced upstart.
But the story of Obama is one of being
constantly underestimated by his opponents.
From his earliest days as a community
organiser on the south side of Chicago he
revealed a talent for motivating people who
thought they were powerless. As a young
politician, hungry with thwarted ambition,
his intellect, self-confidence, astonishing
networking skills and a capacity to charm
people into supporting him, turned him from a
lowly Illinois senator into a political superstar.
His election remains nevertheless a story of
extraordinary talent and self-discipline, along
with some fortunate timing. With a first name
that rhymes with Iraq, a middle name of the
former dictator of that country and a surname
that even American television anchors confuse
with Osama bin Laden, the 47-year-old was
always going to be a hard sell with America’s
so-called “low information” voters.
But if one theme has emerged from his
meteoric rise from community organiser in
the Chicago ghetto to the mansion on 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, it is his
capacity to turn apparently fatal weaknesses
into powerful political weapons.
Exactly a year ago, Obama was lagging 33
points behind Clinton in the opinion polls,
and his supporters were in despair. Two
gut-wrenching presidential election losses to
George Bush in a row had taught Democrats
that a winning candidate needed to retaliate
against attacks quickly if he was to avoid the
fate of John Kerry and Al Gore. The pundits
concluded that the Democratic race was all
but over, and national magazines had already
put Clinton’s face on their covers as the
presumptive Democratic nominee. The polls,
and the money pouring into her war chest, told
them she had to win, but they did not count
on the tsunami of enthusiasm that the Obama
campaign would unleash.
Yet, as he headed into the crowded contest
for the Democratic nomination, the Illinois
Senator had several advantages over his
opponents. He was the ultimate outsider at a First family ... Obama with his daughters
time when voters were desperate for change Natasha (second from left) and Malia
in the way Washington is run. And as a and his wife Michelle acknowledge the
crowd’s cheers at Grant Park in Chicago,
Illinois after his address yesterday. – EPA

by Hamish McRae

LONDON: It is a devastating
inheritance. The 44th president
of the United States takes over
an economy that is in reces-
sion, and coping with that will
surely dominate the first part
of his term of office. But there
is something even bigger stalk-
ing the US economy and that
is its longer-term dependence
on foreign investors being
prepared to carry on financing
it – in effect, buying up America.
To wean the country off such
dependence will be even harder
than shepherding it through the
downturn. Cyclical problems
eventually solve themselves;
structural ones don’t.
Still, this cycle is starting to
look much nastier, with pros-
pects suddenly deteriorating in
the past few weeks, even days.
Until September the US seemed
to be coming through the down-
turn in somewhat better shape
than Europe or the UK. But now
the US economy seems to have
hit a wall. Consumers are cut-
ting back radically; house prices
are still falling; companies are
finding it hard to borrow and
hence slashing investment;
unemployment is rising; and,
a practical issue for the new
Tough challenges
president, the government
deficit is ballooning. The Federal
Reserve has cut its overnight
interest rate to 1 per cent but
so far that has had little effect,
and obviously at that level has
no more ammunition left. If a
rate of 1 per cent does not help
the economy, why should half a
per cent or even zero?
As a result of these darken-
ing economic conditions, Ameri-
cans have become both angry
and frightened: angry because
of the excesses and stupidities
of Wall Street and frightened be-
cause as the malaise has spread
beyond the financial community
to the real economy they have
begun to suffer directly. That
fear shows in a catastrophic
loss of consumer confidence. In
October car sales were down
31 per cent on the previous
year, the worst month for the
industry since 1991. Allow for
population growth and it was
arguably the worst month for
sales since the 1950s.
So the first challenge for the
new president will be to help
Americans recover their sense
of optimism. Franklin D. Roo-
sevelt had to combat that when
he took over in the very much
worse economic conditions of
1933. Those famous words in
his Inaugural Address are worth
quoting in full: “So, first of all, let
me assert my firm belief that the
only thing we have to fear is fear
itself – nameless, unreasoning,
unjustified terror which paraly-
ses needed efforts to convert
retreat into advance.”
It is thanks in part to the folk
memory of the catastrophic
policies that deepened the
1930s depression that the US
authorities, indeed the world’s
monetary authorities, have
sprung into action, rescuing
banks so that depositors don’t
lose any money and pumping
liquidity into the system so that
the banks can continue lending.
But if the financial institutions
are probably past the very worst
of the crisis, their recovery has
hardly begun. Meanwhile, the
real economy is still heading
downhill and at an increasing
speed.
There is no wand that the