Keep Austin Weird”, goes the slogans on T-shirts, hats, bags in the capital city of Texas in the United States. For those landing in Texas for the first time, it may mean a lot of things: church choirs singing religious hymns in a restaurant-cum-bar, cowboys and rodeo shows, or the fact that almost everybody is elected here, from a member of the state legislature, mayor, sheriff, the chief law enforcement officer, the county judge—everyone.The slogan recently hit the headlines in local newspapers with a debate on what they call the “Texas Two-Step” system here. Under this people vote twice in a day—in the ‘primary’ in the day and in the ‘caucus’ in the evening to choose the Democratic Party nominee in the presidential election. Of course, they also vote the same day to choose the Republican nominee, but Republicans vote only once. Think of Dr Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi hitting the poll trail to secure people’s mandate on who should be the Congress nominee for prime minister. And here Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were living out of their planes to secure people’s votes to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for the November elections—when Texans will vote for the third and final time to decide whether they want the Democratic or the Republican nominee as their President.Secretary of State Phil Wilson, acting as Chief Election Officer for Texas, looked askance when asked about the incidence of violence in such a fiercely contested election. “Say it again! Did you say violence?” Wilson said in dismay at a meeting with visiting foreign correspondents in Austin. And then there were guffaws. “No, we in the United States respect and value the sanctity of our votes,” Wilson assured. Local television channels were soon seeking out this correspondent to seek some elaboration on his “interesting question”.Later, over lunch at a restaurant in Houston, a 21-year-old intern in City Mayor Bill White’s office had some words of consolation. “It’s really getting bad even over here. You know I was going somewhere the other day and I saw some guys tearing Hillary’s billboards downtown. This is horrible. What is happening with the people in this country? Are they going crazy?” she wondered.At the Travis County High School polling station on March 4, Robin Schneider, a schoolteacher in her fifties, took leave for the day to persuade people coming to the polling station to vote for Obama. She was no political activist. “I am a citizen. He is concerned about rising housing foreclosures, about the billions of dollars being wasted in Iraq when people are jobless here,” she said. Return of the youth AT the Travis County High School polling station, Gini Bibicato, 19, came with three friends in the afternoon to vote. “We are here for Obama,” said Gini. Another girl gushed over how the Democrat was “charming”, “fresh” and “full of ideas”. Here was this much talked-about phenomenon in this American election—the return of the youth to politics, reminiscent of the John F Kennedy era in the 1960s and Bill Clinton’s spell on them in his first stint in 1992. Bill Clinton had managed to cast the same magic spell on youngsters, according to Mark Strama, a Democratic Member of State Legislature. In 1992, Clinton played saxophones on late night talk shows and participated in MTV news to reach out to the youth successfully. Strama had an interesting take on how Bill Clinton and the young generation parted ways. As President of the United States, Clinton wanted to “stay in touch” with the youth and so went to a Town Hall meeting on MTV to take questions from young audience. “A woman asked him whether he wore boxers or briefs. He said something, but there was a lot of negative publicity about it. It was considered very un-Presidential,” said Strama, adding that it was the beginning of the end of President Clinton’s affair with the youth and he kept away from them in the next polls.Now it’s Obama who is getting youth support. He opened a satellite campaign office in the University of Texas campus in Austin where youngsters could go and make calls to people seeking their votes for him. Many of them became volunteers going out on city squares to spread his message.According to Christian Clarke Casarez of the College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, Obama had a future vision which drew the youth into the political process, the way Kennedy and Bill Clinton had done. “These young people don’t have the baggage of political history. The young relate to Obama as he talks about the future, about hope and change,” said Casarez.Republican Party of Texas Chairman Tina Benkiser conceded Obama’s appeal among the youth and the fact that he had managed to draw in new voters. But, she said, it is not enough for him to challenge John McCain, who has won enough delegates to be nominated the candidate by the Republican Party. “The Illinois senator has not taken any decision in the legislature. People don’t know where he stands on policies,” said Benkiser of Obama. Advertisement war and fundraising: The next battle OBAMA’S slogan of change is countered by the constant refrain of Clinton and McCain about “experience”. And it probably proved to be his undoing in the March 4 primaries and caucuses in Texas and Ohio.Four days before the election, the Clinton campaign issued a TV advertisement that showed children sleeping. There was a voiceover: “It is 3 a.m. in the morning and the phone rings in the White House.” There was a crisis, it continued, and asked whom the people wanted should pick up the phone. Clinton was shown picking it up. The ad was apparently meant to showcase Clinton’s experience in contrast with Obama’s inexperience. While Obama came out with an ad showing endorsement to his candidature by historians from different universities, Clinton came up with endorsements from Generals.In response to the 3 a.m. ad, the Obama campaign came up with one that again showed children sleeping and the same red phone ringing but the ad ended on a different note: “In a dangerous world, it’s the judgment that matters.”It was an attack on both Clinton and McCain for their support to the Iraq war. The ‘3 a.m. ad’ is being seen as having turned the tide in Clinton’s favour as exit polls showed that a significant percentage of people who had been undecided had taken a decision in favour of Clinton in the last three days. It was incidentally the same period marked by controversies like Obama’s former associate from Chicago businessman Tony Rezko going on trial on corruption charges and his key economic advisor telling Canadian officials about Obama’s stand on North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a mere “political positioning”. In the run up to the March 4 primaries and caucuses, both Democratic contenders were fighting a virtual ad war. Clinton spent $ 327,401 to buy 1,410 spots on local television channels, while Obama spent $ 631,904 to buy 2,352 spots. Obama even ran a five-part series of full-page ads in leading newspapers elaborating on his plans and proposals. According to Phil Wilson, Secretary of State, Texas, the two sides together spent $7 million in their campaigning in Texas. Now that the two Democrats are set for a long-drawn series of primaries and caucuses in a dozen states involving 745 delegates, the emphasis is likely to be on collecting donations. Clinton’s donations had at one point of time hit rock bottom and she had to give a $5 million loan to her campaign from her own funds. She, however, changed her tactics after that and adopted Obama’s by focusing on small donors through the Internet. In February she was reported to have raised $35 million, but Obama still outmatched her with $50 million.McCain has been lagging behind in fundraising. His campaign raised $12 million in January, compared to Obama’s $36 million. A debate on protectionismIF the Democratic and Republic campaigns have given any indication so far, the economy and security would be the main issues in the November general elections. When Republicans talked about security, Democrats converted it into a matter of economy. McCain stood solidly behind President George Bush on Iraq saying that troops had to remain there until they “come home with honour”. Democrats turned it around to demand withdrawal of troops questioning expenditures worth billions of dollars in Iraq when people back home have no jobs.Similarly, when Democrats talked about renegotiating NAFTA, McCain turned around to point out how it would affect US-Canada collaboration on terror, especially in Afghanistan.Amidst this debate, there are concerns about the future of companies outsourcing jobs to Asian countries like India and East Europe, about the sanctity of international trade agreements like NAFTA and about the future of US’ laissez faire economic model. “Historically, in the ’70s and ’80s, both Democrats and Republicans were in favour of free trade. We are, however, seeing this new trend towards protectionism on both the Right and the Left,” said Professor Michael Brandl from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Clinton was sounding ominous: “We have got an economy, which is not working for America.Does anyone care about hardworking people of Ohio?”“We think the terms of NAFTA have to be altered to strengthen environmental and labour protections,” said Obama.McCain countered them: “I don’t believe in protectionism. I have seen from our history our security being damaged by protectionism and isolationism.” Brandl, however, felt that even McCain would be under tremendous pressure in the run up to November Presidential election as there was a “great deal of anger on the conservative side” and the conservatives, like Democratic candidates, favoured increased government’s role in economy.Some people felt that Clinton and Obama were only playing to the gallery in Ohio, which has lost 2,00,000 jobs in manufacturing sector in the past seven years. “I don’t see outsourcing becoming a national bogey. Issues like healthcare and education will dominate the debate at the national level,” said Jim Henson, Director, Texas Politics Project. Shama Gamkhar, Associate Professor at the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, however, felt that the issue of outsourcing was not a mere electoral rhetoric. “This issue is not limited to Texas. Manufacturing advantage of the US has shifted to developing countries hitting domestic jobs. Unemployment is especially acute in Ohio. At the same time the US economy is undergoing a bad patch,” said Gamkhar, a Delhi School of Economics alumni.“Stopping tax reliefs to companies outsourcing jobs should not worry people in India simply because, even if it happens—and I have doubts about the US Congress approving it—it does not mean closure for such companies because tax portion of any company’s cost in US is not substantial when compared to other factors like, say, labour cost,” said Gamkhar.
