US elections move into final phase

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By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Washington DC

Now the party conventions are over, the hard campaigning beginsThe last streamer-bedecked balloon has dropped from the rafters. The roar of the final confetti-cannon has faded and the last souvenir boater has been packed away.

Republicans are left to wonder if it will ever be possible to wear those plush-toy hats in the shape of an elephant - the symbol of their party - anywhere else on earth.

The rest of us are left to puzzle over how all the television cutaway shots of people shuffling along to the between-speeches music failed to find a single delegate in either party who could dance.

In short, the conventions are over.

The race for the White House, which has become so long that it sometimes feels as though it has neither a beginning nor an end but only an interminable middle, really is in its final stretch.

The race which has furnished all sorts of extraordinary historical possibilities continues, in some ways at least, to be different.

Missing bounce

We already knew that this was the first time since the 1920s when none of the primary-season candidates for high office had ever served as either president or vice-president.

And the range of possible winners included from the very beginning the first black politician with a real chance of winning the presidency - Barack Obama - as well as the first woman, Hillary Clinton.Some white Americans may not vote for Barack Obama because he is black

You can add to that the man who would be the oldest president at the start of his first term - John McCain - and the first woman to win a place on a Republican ticket, Sarah Palin.

And now there is one more noteworthy oddity for that list.

Neither party appears to be enjoying the large, clear bounce in the opinion polls which traditionally follows their conventions.

Historically, candidates have been able to count on a 10% surge in popularity after the party gathering - partly because in modern times they have enjoyed extensive exposure on television against sympathetic and often spectacular backdrops.

This time around, one poll of polls which had Obama leading by 49 points to 43 on the way into the conventions with 8 undecided had him in front 45 to 42 on the way out of them, with 13% undecided.

The bounce factor this time around was largely missing - probably because the conventions this year came back to back, instead of several weeks apart as they usually do.

That meant, for example, that John McCain was grabbing headlines with his choice of running-mate less than 24 hours after Barack Obama's speech to his convention in Denver.

In other words, the tale of the opinion polls is not varying very much.

Campaign skills

Most show Mr Obama in front, but when you take into account the statistical margin of error they don't show him in front by very much.

There is plenty to worry strategists from both parties in those numbers.For Republicans, the concern is obvious. Mr McCain does appear to be persistently behind, albeit by relatively small margins. We're Americans, we never give up, we never quit, we don't hide from history, we make history John McCain

He has undoubted credentials as a Republican who has been prepared to work with Democrats in the past and as a war hero - the story of his days in that Vietnam PoW camp has been told well, and told often.

But he is not an exciting campaigner. That may well be why he played a wild card in his vice-presidential pick and went for the mercurial, and combative Mrs Palin.

I have not seen them performing together yet, but I'm assured she has brought new energy to the Republican cause.

For Democrats, the concern is more subtle.

Their candidate is leading - and some polls show him doing extraordinarily well even in traditional republican strongholds like North Dakota.

But this is a year when America is suffering a crisis in the housing market, record gasoline prices and rising unemployment under an unpopular president who's conducting wars on two fronts overseas.

Lots of Democrats are concerned that their candidate is not winning by miles - they believe 2008 really should be a Democratic year.

Could it be that for all his charm in interviews, his brilliance onstage and his undoubted mastery of policy detail, Mr Obama is struggling to close the deal with the American public because of the colour of his skin?

Race is a sensitive issue in American politics and direct discussion of the issues around it is difficult, but it seems certain that a proportion of the white American electorate will not vote for Mr Obama because he is black.

It is not an issue about which people tell the truth to opinion pollsters either, so we will not know until election day how large that group might be and what influence race will have on the outcome of the race.

Tight race

So there you have the factors which make this presidential race different - but it is remarkable how, as election day approaches, Campaign 2008 is starting to look much more like other campaigns of the past.

From now on you can expect John McCain to hammer away at two themes - that Democrats will raise your taxes if you're an ordinary American, and that a Republican White House will make America safer in a dangerous world.

He will run too on an emotional idea of American-ness. As he told his convention audience,

"We're Americans, we never give up, we never quit, we don't hide from history, we make history," he told his convention audience.

And expect Mr Obama to hammer away at his core theme that a vote for John McCain is a vote for a continuation of George W Bush's America.

His promise is about spreading American prosperity more evenly.

"John McCain doesn't get it," he said in Denver, "for over two decades he subscribed to that old discredited Republican philosophy, 'give more and more to those who have the most' ."

The race between those competing visions is tight, and will get tighter.

Everything may now depend on the series of presidential and vice-presidential debates which kicks off in Mississippi towards the end of this month - but expect Campaign 2008 to remain desperately close until the very last minute.