Dear Editor,
I usually respect Mr. Vishnu Bisram’s analysis and objectivity as a pollster whenever there is a political contest in the Caribbean. However, I’m totally disappointed with his examination and approach to the US Democratic nominating contest.
Months before the first contest in Iowa, Mr. Bisram wrote to inform readers that American based Caribbean nationals were in unanimous support of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination. In this instance he provided no methodology as to how he arrived at that conclusion.
Now he is painting a picture that Hillary Clinton is the underdog (the candidate who has to play catch-up) in the contest. The only person who has had to come from behind is Barack Obama.
Leading up to Iowa many pundits had expected the race to be a coronation ceremony for Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama was given little chance. It was only after Iowa that her veil of invincibility faded and Barack Obama was considered a serious candidate.
In his most recent letter titled “I still believe Clinton and Mc Cain will be their parties’ candidates,” Mr. Bisram related to readers that “Clinton had no chance in South Carolina and as such folded her campaign and went to Florida where she has won big. So now, Obama has won two major contests and Clinton four major contests.” In South Carolina (SC) Clinton was the overwhelming favourite a couple of months ago, enjoying strong support from the African American community, but after Obama won Iowa and Bill Clinton started making ill conceived racial remarks about Obama, Blacks switched allegiance and Obama won by a landslide. The SC win was not entirely racial; Obama won votes from 25 % of the white population with a majority of those votes coming from the young and more educated voters. Hillary never “folded” her campaign in SC, she and her husband (dubbed Billary) campaigned aggressively the weeks and months leading up to the contest. She folded when she saw the early exit polls on voting day.
In Florida, it was revealed how desperate the Clinton camp had become. There was no real race in Florida because the Democrat Party had stripped the state from rewarding delegates. All the candidates had agreed not to campaign in the state over a year ago, it was only two weeks ago, in an about turn, that Clinton decided that Florida voters were important. Nobody actively campaigned, except maybe for Clinton, in Florida and no delegates were regarded, but that still didn’t stop a desperate Hillary from holding a farcical victory party (funny stuff indeed).
In terms of the number of races won, only four really count (Michigan and Florida are irrelevant) and it is not the number of races won that is important but the number of delegates amassed and up to this point Barack Obama has more.
Mr. Bisram is quite aware of the dynamics that I have just outlined, but for some reason it eludes him to mention those points in his analysis. Sounds like a subjective Hillary Cheerleader to me.
Yours faithfully,
Clinton Urling
