Olympic Energy

With the Beijing Olympics ready to take center stage on the world (if it hasn't already) the American political race will continue but the excitement level and interest are doing to drop drastically. Most Americans will be more concerned about track and field than polls and surveys.

But nevertheless, the campaign will go on. Democratic Party nominee in waiting, Senator Barack Obama, continues to lead in the polls by small amounts. His "bounce" from his European and Middle Eastern tour dissipated but he climbed back up to his normal 4-6 point lead by Tuesday.

Senator John McCain, the Republican Party nominee in waiting, had a pretty good week. He finally found an avenue of attack against Senator Obama that drew some blood and that was the Democrat's celebrity. Senator McCain ran an ad that I saw on television several times over the weekend, showing Brittany Spears and Paris Hilton, and comparing their celebrity to that of Senator Obama. Another ad compared Senator Obama to Moses and used a clip from the 1956 film, The Ten Commandments, to illustrate the point.

The US press chortled and snorted saying the ads were hopeless, but they did work. They were viewed quite heavily on YouTube and other social networking sites, and I guess you could credit them with driving down Senator Obama a bit from his often lofty perch.

The two are now slugging it out over energy policy: who approves drilling where, and at what cost. Both have reversed positions previously held on where to drill for oil. But with costs of petroleum dropping a bit and now being noticed at US pumps, will energy costs (part of a larger economic issue) be as important as it once was? What will be the next issue du jour in the campaign if gasoline in the US remains under four bucks a gallon?

Who knows? The public reacts and then the candidates react to the public reacting. Not much will change in that regard until the two parties' conventions in August and September, but I believe that after they are over, we'll be back where we were before. Both candidates have to do well at their conventions because it will be the first time that Americans who weren't invested in the primary races will take a serious look at them. Even then, I would venture to say many Americans wait until the weekend before the election to make up their minds although they may lean one way or another.

But if you're tired of the constant campaign, take a break, enjoy the Olympics, and hope the weather smiles over Beijing's Bird's Nest. Talking to my friends in Hong Kong tonight, they said they were in the middle of a typhoon. Not great weather for outdoor events, but maybe it will clear out the pollution Beijing is noted for.

Hope your nations' athletes do well in Beijing...