The Day of Judgement - 3 November 2000

Finally the day of judgement - Tuesday 7 November. I've been following American presidential elections since 1936. I must tell you the first time it happened, when I accepted an invitation to join the resident members of the Harvard Club in London, and thanks to the marvels of modern technology to listen to a short wave radio set and hope the signal was steady enough to enable us to follow the results. Most of the time it was, other times it crackled or whined.

Of course we had to sit up throughout the night because of the five-hour difference in time - an anomaly that modern technology could do nothing about.

But the officers of the Harvard Club greatly softened this ordeal with copious drafts of the - shall we say - the wine of Scotland.

It was just as well for most of the young Harvard men present had learned from their fathers to loathe and fear Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal.

"Nothing short of galloping socialism," one dutiful son protested.

And when the radio gave forth the unmistakable roar of a Roosevelt landslide they were in urgent need of solace.

They were outraged by the Roosevelt victory - he took 46 states against the governor of Kansas's two - because the only poll then extant - it was the pioneer of polling - was one put out by a magazine called The Literary Digest and it had predicted an overwhelming victory for Governor Landon.

Soon after the election a new breed of statisticians examined the Digest's polling method and found it had collected its opinions - the numbers - by looking through telephone books and local automobile registration lists.

In other words the Digest, and the rest of the country, realised a little late in the day that Governor Landon was going to get the overwhelming vote of people who had a motorcar and a telephone.

Sixty four years ago, in the pit of the Depression, that left out of consideration an awful lot of millions of Americans who didn't own these luxurious conveniences.

That infamous poll killed the magazine and opened the way for the arrival of an unknown young Midwestern scientist named George Gallup and the beginning of the statistical sample.

Well today there are at least eight national pollsters, all professing to be objective, and for the first time I can remember they are not only in the dark about what's going to happen they're not in conflict. They are baffled, bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

And even the boldest of them gives either Governor Bush or Vice President Gore no more than a three percentage edge and quickly adds the warning that the prediction is subject to three or four% error. In other words, for once, everybody has checked out of the prophesy business.

To visitors from abroad and to foreigners here who follow American politics a first, even a long second, glance reveals no mystery in the relative appeal of the two candidates.

This is what they see: On the one hand the vice president - the Democrats' Mr Gore - 24 years in Washington, eight years in the House, seven in the Senate, on committees for energy, for science, conservation, foreign affairs, served two years in Vietnam - as a reporter admittedly but often close to danger - is an admitted, though self-proclaimed, expert on the environment - almost an alarmist on global warming and deeply concerned about the need to discipline the world's industries.

At least half of President Clinton's initiatives in foreign policy were inspired by the vice-president.

He broke with his party to vote in favour of the Gulf War which you will recall was at the time and ever since has been considered President Bush's finest hour.

So for the past eight years, as vice-president, Mr Gore has been privy to every public and secret policy of this administration.

The best trained and best qualified man to be president in modern history it's been said of him by many influential politicians including some Republicans who dare not, of course, speak their name.

On the other - the Republican hand - Governor Bush, an arrow straight, handsome chip off the old block. In fact chipper and handsomer than the old block.

Governor of Texas for the past six years, before that an oil man - not doing very well but well enough to grow affluent during the unprecedented nine-year prosperity. But he did acquire and successfully run a baseball team.

Now such a bald summary is cruel, even though it's a favourite Democratic biography of the governor.

It should not be forgotten - remember the Democrats' scorn of Ronald Reagan - that a governor has to be conversant with every aspect of the political, economic and social life of his state.

And for many decades, before Senator Kennedy broke into the White House, a governorship was thought to be, and in practice was, the most favoured stepping stone to the presidency.

Now our foreigner, knowing so much and little more of each man's background, has presumably spent the last few weeks listening to the three television debates and to the speeches of the candidates stumping around the country.

And the foreign observers agree with the domestic ones - of whatever political prejudice - that if you tap Mr Gore on any issue he will reel off impressive statistics without taking a breath - I almost said he will give you a detailed answer ad nauseum - bear in mind that Freudian slip.

On the other hand Governor Bush is not interested in explaining policy, what he calls details.

When the vice-president reminds him that an impartial commission found children's healthcare in Texas to be 50th in the rostrum of states - the worst in the nation - Governor Bush looks patient and affable and responds quietly: "We take care of our own."

But on so many great issues - the long-term protection of pensions, social security, the extension of Medicare - the free health system for the old, rich or poor, how much of a tax cut and who should get it - both candidates have to go into figures.

And they have such different systems of arithmetic, and they're talking about billions and trillions of dollars, that the differences between their policies drown in a boiling ocean of numbers. It's too much for most voters, so the polls report.

But also there's one huge assumption that lies behind all this arithmetic which doesn't seem to come up in the campaign rallies. Both the vice-president and Governor Bush assume that the huge monies for these great reform expenditures will come from the enormous surplus that the nation will boast of in 2004, not to mention 2008.

Both parties assume that the present economic boom, which is already in its ninth year - a record in the 130-year history of booms and recessions - they assume it's going on forever. This is surely a delusion.

It comes up between friends and in families but it's never brought up to the candidates on the stump for, I believe, the simple drastic difference between party rallies in Europe and here.

In this country a candidate's rally is a rally of the faithful. You never hear from a heckler.

However, we've got ahead of ourselves. From the background sketch of both candidates and the glimpse of the two men's opposing tactics in debate those foreign observers of mine say: "Well there's no contest surely: Gore is plainly the man?"

But, as we noted at the beginning, to the voters it's not plain at all. And it's agreed, even by the most double-dome commentators that probably, as never before, appearance, likeability - the manner and character of the two men seen in public which today and forever more means seen in close up all the time on television - this could be the decisive factor.

As I talk to you only days away from the election more than 10% of the voters - one poll says 15% - are undecided and the puzzle, the choice seems to come down to not so much a choice between the looks and manner of the vice-president and the looks and manner of Governor Bush but between the affability, the likeability of the comparatively ignorant Governor Bush and the knowledge and experience of the unpleasant Mr Gore.

For it's also generally - I was going to say universally admitted, except by passionate Democrats - that Mr Gore is an unhappy looking campaigner, as of a bad actor running for president - a smart Alec - top boy in the class, always with his hand waving, teacher's pet.

And Governor Bush always sounds gentle, composed, authoritative, even when he says: "We must get our troops out of Haiti" and nobody says: "Wait a minute: All 29 of them?"

So unable to predict the result and afraid of falling on their faces even learned pundits fall back on one of several famous clichés.

Since no incumbent has ever been thrown out of the White House during an economic boom they cry: "You can't beat prosperity."

But then there's: "A new face is always welcome" or: "A new broom sweeps clean."

Or as one famous commentator said last night with great gravity: "I honestly think it'll be either Bush or Gore."

THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY.

Letter from America scripts © Cooke Americas, RLLP. All rights reserved.