The clock is ticking. In less than a year the United States (and the rest of the world) will know if President Obama will lead the United States for the following 4 years or whether he will be sitting on the side on January 20, 2013, as the Republican nominee takes the oath to faithfully serve his or her country.
The time between when the polling booths shut down and when the official results are published will depend pretty much on how close the two candidates stand and whether there are States in which a few hundred votes can tip the balance and the outcome of the election either one way or the other. Everyone hopes that this time around the electoral officers do not end up having to manually decide if each pregnant punched card is valid or not.
Yet the scenario described about is a possible reality. The first reason why this is more likely to happen is because today it is becoming increasingly more difficult to not get involved in the electoral process. Switch on the TV, read a newspaper, listen to a radio station or surf the internet and election related content envelopes you. Prospective candidates will be spending more than $1 billion to promote themselves to the voting public. And $1 billion, even in today’s watered down economy, still buys you a heck of a lot of attention.
The second reason why the difference between the winner and the loser are becoming slimmer lies in how difficult it is becoming for voters to pick the better candidate. For starters political extremes no longer exists and irrespective of whether one chooses a Democrat or a Republican, the expected real difference between one and the other are subtle. Secondly, each campaign has mastered the art of promoting their candidate as being the perfect choice while demonizing the other side. Many a time voters will clinch on a issue that they feel is important to them and cast their vote accordingly.
