Ainda mais sobre as eleições nos EUA...

Artigo de Edward Luce, no FT, sobre os factores que estão a influenciar o comportamento eleitoral nas primárias dos EUA:

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - Candidate likeability ticks all the right boxes:

• "What happened in Iowa and what may well recur with variations in New Hampshire describes much more interesting underlying influences on the voters. If, as opinion polls suggest (a big if), Mr Obama and Mr McCain win the Democratic and Republican races in New Hampshire on Tuesday, they will have done so partly because voters believe they are governed by principles.
  Mr Obama’s promise to move beyond the (Clinton era’s) politics of “poll-tested triangulation” and Mr McCain’s indefatigable “Straight Talk Express” may be over-hyped but they remain close enough to reality to seem authentic. The same helped deliver Mr Huckabee’s Robin Hood-esque victory in Iowa last week.
  But voters are also looking for something even more basic – likeability. In 2000 a large proportion of swing voters told pollsters that ultimately they found George W. Bush more likeable than Al Gore. They said they would much prefer to have a beer with him.
  ....The same applies to Mrs Clinton, whom voters rate as the most competent and experienced of the Democrats. But they do not like her much. Last week’s results show which mattered more to Iowa’s voters when it came to the crunch.
  And thus we are left with a counter-intuitive conclusion. After two Bush terms, candidates of all stripes have proclaimed 2008 to be an election of change. But in one visceral respect little has changed. Money or no money – and of course money helps – likeability still trumps credentials in the privacy of the ballot booth."