The Democrats can't afford to underestimate Palin as they did Bush. Not because of the candidate herself is anything special, but because the RNC knows how to frame the debate, and they don't.

What a disappointing debate. Far from the walk-over that many Obama fans were taking for granted, Biden and Palin seemed to demonstrate just how little the Democrats have learned in the past 25 years.

If we look at the debate in strictly intellectual terms, Biden did as well as everyone would expect. He clearly and concisely defended Obama’s positions on the major issues- most impressively in regards to Iraq and the issue of taxation. Palin, to her credit, appeared to have come a hell of a long way since her disastrous CBS interview earlier this week, showing at least an awareness of what McCain’s positions were. Her answers consisted largely of pre-prepared talking points and soundbites, and were a long way from the grounded, systematically explained arguments put forward by Biden. In intellectual terms, the candidate with the superior experience, background knowledge and education won unequivocally.

But both Al Gore and Kerry were beaten by Bush. And as Biden stood there, reeling off lists of arguments, statistics and policy positions- even going so far as to number them for us on several occasions- Palin stood there smirking, just as Bush did in ‘00 and ‘04, and as Reagan had done 15 years before that.

Despite what the political junkies who have the benefit of background knowledge might think, all those facts, arguments and policy positions just bounced right off her. You could see Biden getting more and more exasperated, desperately searching for a knock-out statistic that might elicit a gasp from the audience or an ‘oooh’ and an ‘ahh’ and send Palin dashing out of the room in tears. And poor guy- he just kept repeating himself; wondering why that killer fact didn’t have the desired impact first time round and saying it again, just in case nobody had heard him clearly.

And know-nothing Sarah, who had been drilled to parrot slogans, stood there smirking. When it got to her turn, she barely talked about the issues, and she certainly didn’t waste time explaining her ticket’s reasoning for holding those positions. Instead, she told us stories.

At every opportunity, she told us little details about herself which made her look human, like a normal person rather than a politician. Sure, both candidates engaged in the ‘When I was in Smallville I met superman and he can’t afford to fill his gas tank/ pay for an operation’ rhetoric, but Palin perfected the art of Bush and Reagan, and took it 10 miles further. “Is it all right if I call you Joe?”, she asked loudly as the candidates appeared on stage.

She constantly hammered home the idea of her and McCain being Washington outsiders, on several occasions completely ignoring Biden, the audience and the moderator, and, the down-home outsider she is, talking directly at the camera, and thus to the American people. For those that understand the seriousness of the debate, it’s easy to scoff at these kind of stunts- after all, they’re pre-planned hogwash, about as far from being spontaneous as it comes. But for a nation which prides itself on defying formalities and talking straight, and which is fed-up with Washington convention, they were stunts that resonated.

When Reagan won his first election, the polls indicated that something funny was going on. The majority of people actually disagreed with his stance on many issues, but intended to vote for him anyway.

They voted for him because, while the Democrats gave them lists of facts, Reagan (a man who, it must be said had little more time in Washington than Obama) sold them a dream- a world-view – a set of ideas. He spoke about a country restored from the ignominy of Watergate and global recession, in which the American spirit of free enterprise and self-reliance would be restored, evoking the spirit of the frontier.

Whilst bare logic said that they didn’t necessarily sign up for Reagan’s platform on the immediate issues- his ability to connect with voters, to communicate a more abstract set of values and a character the voters trusted and could relate to meant that, while they didn’t agree with him on everything, they nonetheless had confidence in his ability to handle the unforeseen.

People like (and vote) for people who are like them- even if they don’t always agree with them. The empirical, rationalist model which says that people will naturally vote along the lines of their own self-interest has been proven to be wrong, time and time again. The human brain is more sophisticated than a mechanical instrument of narrow, self-interested logic, and is designed to make decisions based on more than the facts before us. People will ignore facts that don’t fit into the frame they have chosen to view the World through.

Earlier this year, the Obama campaign, almost uniquely for a Democratic candidate in a long time, showed signs of understanding this. He beat Hillary, not because they differed substantially on the issues, but because voters bought into a story- a wider narrative of a little skinny kid who, from the most unlikely of backgrounds, had forged himself an identity in America, the nation of opportunity, and who would once again restore that opportunity to the nation as a whole. Presidential elections are about selling characters, not issue positions. If the electorate believes in the character, they’ll trust them to handle the issues.

The Obama campaign- as the Bush and Reagan campaigns did too, ran on the reasoning that if voters responded and bought into the ‘Obama dream’, and the values and principles implicit within it, then agreement on the facts and policy positions would follow. Palin, and John McCain, by presenting a story of a pair of mavericks taking on the World, are doing the same thing. The two most successful Democrats of the 20th century- FDR and JFK, did it too- not by setting out specific plans for economic renewal or for winning the cold war, but by embodying the concepts of renewed confidence, youth and vitality, thus winning the confidence of the American people to handle the challenges facing the nation.

Over the past few months though (I suspect due to the increase in the DNC’s influence since he became the official nominee), the Obama campaign seems to have lost its nerve. They came under attack for not talking about the issues enough, and while it was definitely time to have some plans prepared in more detail that could be referred to in rebutting some of McCain’s more outrageous claims, they’ve done this at the expense of abandoning the key ideas and narrative that won Obama the primary.

Which is the reason why Palin could stand there and smirk, ignoring the issues whilst hammering home her personality, life story and what she (at least pretends) to represent. And Biden was doing half the work for her- did anybody count the number of times he said the word maverick? As George Lakoff predicted an in an excellent article at the beginning of this month, the more the Obama campaign uses the word ‘maverick’- even if in order to negate McCain-Palin’s claims to be one, the more they unwittingly re-enforce the concept.

Nixon standing before TV cameras to say ‘I am not a crook’, simply made us all think of him as a crook. Same principle. Yet Biden stood there and repeatedly said that ‘McCain is not a maverick’, and we all sat there and thought of McCain as a maverick. Use any other phrase- call him a ‘Washington insider’ as Lakoff suggested, a ‘friend of lobbyists’, ‘yesterday’s man’ or any other phrase you like- but got goodness sake, Biden should know better than to fall into line and obediently parrot McCain’s own choice of (largely positive) language to describe himself.

Just a few blocks from Ebeneezer Baptist Church in downtown Atlanta, Barack Obama is viewed by many as King's successor.

Something is afoot in America. I deliberately avoid the term ‘change’ because at the moment, it’s politically loaded, and what we’re seeing, I think, goes far beyond any individual politician.

Today, I saw a guy wearing a politician’s face on his t-shirt. I see his face on posters in people’s windows, and his words on baseball caps being sold by street vendors. And they’re not official either- not a single one carries the politician’s campaign logo or official portrait.

They’re different colours, different designs, carrying different slogans- products of at least a dozen different politically opportunistic entrepreneurs, and far beyond the scope of being orchestrated by the candidate’s own campaign organisation.

Coming off the subway in downtown Atlanta, there are people encouraging you to register to vote. They don’t wear badges or a uniform, their clipboards have ragged edges, and the pens are attached to strings with sticky tape. As far as I can see, they’re out here in the searing, late summer afternoon heat on their own initiative.

And in all of the scenes I’ve mentioned, the participants have been black. 90% of the people you see in downtown Atlanta are anyway, and for at least half of the remaining 10%, venturing here seems to be considered a risky, and, at best, unsavoury experience.

And the politician is Barack Obama, who appears on t-shirts alongside Atlanta native Martin Luther King with the slogan ‘The change began with the dream’. Groups of African-American kids in gaudy trainers, and low-rider shorts wander the city as they always have done, but then you do a double take and realise ‘bloody hell-they’re wearing the face of a politician’.

Whether due to genuine policy or the more unsavoury reason of racial identity, Barack Obama has, in less than a year, become an icon amongst people from all kinds of communties, notably ones with little previous political involvement. Whatever the outcome of the election, even his most ardent critics accept that his place in history is assured. The image, and everything that individual people have invested it, has already transcended the man, whatever his political fate may be.

If the Republicans, as McCain’s slogan claims, genuinely believe in putting “country first” above politics, then patriotism dictates that they must proceed with caution. Barack Obama, whatever your opinion of his character or political substance, has become a phenomenon. Whatever you think of the man, the icon has become a rallying point for the sincerely-held dreams and concerns of millions of Americans and indeed, millions across the World.

Whether you view this development as sinister or benign, it’s naïve to consider him an ordinary adversary. Mocking or simply dismissing the sentiments of his supporters and their genuine hunger for a political voice is a dangerous strategy. If persued, it seems highly likely that a Republican victory would be at the expense of the country.

The highly possible defeat of Obama could further marginalise millions of black Americans and millions more overseas, dangerously undermining perceptions of American democracy. The current disillusionment felt towards the US government, set against a backdrop of economic difficulties has the potential to boil over into altogether more alarming forms of generalised anti-Americanism overseas, and civil discontent and instability at home.

The threat of violence or fear of disagreement is the mortal enemy of democracy, and one which should sway no voter. None of the above scenarios are a good reason why McCain shouldn’t win.

But whether or not you believe Obama has been irresponsible in stirring passions to such a fever-pitch, the real measure of the victor’s love for this country will not be how they wear their lapel pin. Rather, it will be their willingness to reach out, listen to and, where possible, accommodate the voices and concerns of the millions of Americans who have spoken up in this election, many for the first time. Ignoring them would be the real tragedy of this election.

The view from my table on the alleyway outside Hussein's Restaurant

“Ahhmaaayyzing”, Hussein exclaimed, with the unmistakably deep, throaty voice of a well-practised smoker. As he said it, the said smoke bellowing from his nostrils as if they were the windows of a house on fire.

Having only taken up the art of shisha a few days before, I was amazed how he managed it, my own efforts being limited to sporadic puffs of the apple & melon flavoured smoke. Sitting on the alleyway watching the world go past, we both laughed heartily at his imitation of an extremely attractive Canadian woman who, several nights before had enthusiastically endorsed his cooking.

‘Probably the Best Restaurant in the World’ read a dog-eared computer printout sellotaped to the shutter of the restaurant, and I was inclined to agree. Bashar, in his various guises of president and war hero looked down on us from a pair of portraits hung over the door, along a further printout declaring that “No milk rocks like our milk shakes”. This place was a positive well of Earthly wisdom, and with the shisha (or perhaps lack of oxygen to the brain) kicking in, an ideal vantage point from which to contemplate the day.

The first time I’d eaten at Hussein’s a few days before, I was sure I was going to get hepatitis. A group of us had been guided there by the recommendation of a guy at our hotel, and once lured in by Hussein’s considerable charm and irresistible personality (both crucial skills for any Syrian businessman), none of us could walk away. Come what may, we would deal with the hepatitis. We all sat there, around a table looking nervously at one another, as the food began.

I hesitate to call Husseins’ joint a restaurant, because to do so takes a fair bit of imagination. The whole place consists of a small room of about 10 x 15 metres, perched on a side street in a part of Damascus that specialises in computer repairs. At one end of the room is the kitchen, consisting of a cooker, oven, and mountains of jars and various fruits and vegetables. At the other end, a table which seven or eight people can squeeze around if they’re reasonably friendly with one another and prepared to be eye balled by the goldfish tank which adds gravitas to the corner of the room. Across two-thirds of the doorway is a giant window chiller that may or may not work in all manner of concoctions, sauces, marinades and coatings can be found that Hussein has prepared earlier. There is an upstairs, with enough seating for six more people, but you have to climb a ladder to reach it.

It looks like the kind of place where people catch horrible diseases, but, stopping short of unthinkable scenarios involving chocolate, it’s about as intimate as dining experiences come.

Hussein, as it turns out, is a proper chef. For many years he worked at what sounds like a pretty nice hotel in Switzerland, training under the instruction of a French chef who habitually burned him with hot oil if a anything short of perfection was achieved in the kitchen. And, abuse in the kitchen aside, he had been trained well- damn that man can cook. Aside from a small whiteboard announcing ‘Hussein Specials’, indicating what he fancies cooking that night, Hussein can rustle you up just about anything you ask, while you watch from within the corner of the restaurant.

And on this particular evening, 4 courses in, he was in a particular mood to entertain myself and the guys from the hostel. Sitting down opposite us as we ate, periodically complimenting him on his genuinely good food, he would periodically pause for a second. His eyes would light up: “How does stuffed aubergines sound?” he would suggest, followed by Mexican chicken, Turkish kebab, pasta, milkshakes, watermelon and plates of fresh fruit along with anything else we might be able to manage. As we made suggestions, he came up with ideas and tested new dishes. It was less like a restaurant, and more like having your own personal chef.

As he cooked, we talked. In the Middle East, he maintained, it was impossible to do anything without being born into money. Hard work could get you so far, he argued, but never enough to rule the roost. More important than money though, were women- without them, he said, money was worthless, and happiness unobtainable. I listened to the chef attentively.

On the issue of the US, his views were clear. Syria’s own president had changed since since the last American president of any merit. Bashar al Assad, who, we were told, hardly ever sleeps, had spent the past 8 years working hard to open the country up and move it forward, and with America, he would be no different.

Bush was crazy, he told me, in a matter of fact tone, making shooting gestures all over the room. All he wanted was war, and so it was impossible to deal with him. Did Syrian people want war? Did American people? He was sure not.

“Obama or McCain?” I asked, expecting (I admit) to hear an Obama endorsement. According to Hussein, though, it didn’t matter. “Once this Bush is gone, America’s new president and our new President agree, Syria and America can be friends again and everything will be good”, he pronounced confidently. I haven’t yet met a Syrian who wants anything other than a close relationship with the US, and Hussein was no different.

Following my mammoth meal, and with people in the alleyway starting to settle down to beers and Shisha, Hussein invited me to join him. Sitting there, eating slices of apple and passing the shisha back and forth every so often, I felt genuinely relaxed for the first time since leaving England.

Europe and the Middle East, he concluded, were basically the same place. Unlike the Far East, Africa and the Americas, which had only entered into our histories relatively recently, Europe and the Middle East had been intertwined since the beginning of civilization. Our armies had swept across each other’s lands since before the Romans, with trade and knowledge exchanged over the centuries since then. Every cathedral in Europe, he reminded me, owed its existence to events here in Damascus. Enthusiastically, he remarked that monuments built by Italian Romans could be found in the centre of Syria, and Arab ruins in Southern France and Spain.

A couple of hours later, the red coals on the shisha had started to die down. I got up, thanked Hussein, and asked how much I owed him. He paused for a second, tallying it all up. My wallet was open, andwould have gone home quite happy having paid whatever he had asked. “450, I think”, he replied. I gave him a 500 Syrian note, about GBP 5.50. Shaking his hand, promising to come again, I departed for my hotel, thinking that this guy was just about right.

From the Democratic debate in New Hampshire last night, it’s now clear that the contest between the candidates has effectively come down to two key characteristics which, in 2008 will matter the most to voters. These are experience and change. The third, electability, is an equally important issue likely to be on the minds of New Hampshire’s Democrats, but one which is typically discussed only behind closed doors. Faced with questions on an array of topics ranging from healthcare to nuclear proliferation, candidates’ replies consistently returned to firstly why they felt they had the experience to handle it, and secondly, why they were best placed to offer a significant break with the past on that particular issue.

Hillary Clinton, above anyone else, has worked to make experience the central theme of the campaign. Asked about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal last night, she jumped to draw parallels with a similar incident which occurred under her husband’s administration. When queried about her ability to work with congress, she pointed to her ‘35 years of experience’ in national politics, as well as identifying rival candidates from both parties as good friends and colleagues. The way the she speaks, you’d think that Bill Clinton had spent 8 years in the White House as a yes-man.

This is all part of her chief advisor’s ‘incumbent strategy’, the plan being from the beginning to form the Hillary campaign to look as much like a government in exile, ready from day one to take the reins, as possible. Few now doubt that the current administration is one of the least competent ever to hold office, whilst even fewer doubt that when it comes to competence and experience of how Washington works, Hilary is difficult to beat. The flip side of the ‘incumbent’ strategy, is that is was also designed to make mincemeat of younger, unforeseen opponents standing in her way, Obama particularly by exposing their lack of experience. Over the past few days, we’ve seen her attacks get increasingly nasty, as she tries to convince Democrats that not to give her the White House would be, quite simply, irresponsible

Employing the same politics of fear and cynicism which have characterised the White House for the past 8 years, Bill Clinton has repeatedly wondered out loud if America can afford to ‘take a roll of the dice’ on a candidate such as Obama with only three years in the Senate. Hilary, on the other hand, has openly questioned whether anyone but her is fit to go into battle with the infamous Republican attack machine, seasoned warrior that she is. Last night, she even tried to compare Obama to George Bush, helpfully reminding us of what happened last time America voted for a guy ‘they’d like to have a beer with’, throwing caution into the wind and relying on intuition over intellect. After Iowa revealed that competence wasn’t enough, and that the ability to affect change was something that actually mattered to voters, Hilary last night was at pains to incorporate it into her own message, arguing that, as the most experienced candidate, she is the one best placed to affect change and to go into battle with Republicans to achieve it, reeling off a list of legislation she had fought for over the years.

But change is more than a legislative program, it’s also more than a change in the party to hold the White House. The victory for Obama (and, yes, Huckabee) shows that Americans are looking for something more fundamental than that. Even if viewed as incidental, the Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton pattern that would result from a Hilary victory is symptomatic of a much more fundamental malaise in American politics.

People are waking up to the realisation that lasting change doesn’t come about from switching from one party to the other every eight years on a razor-thin percentage of the vote, just so the new administration can reverse the programme of its predecessor and institute its own. When Clinton talks about her experience in politics, that’s the game she’s referring to. When she talks about competence, all she’s saying is that she can hit the Republicans harder, knocking them out of the White House for perhaps twelve years, rather than the customary eight. That’s not change, that’s business as usual, and a game of merry-go-round politics which Americans know they can no longer afford.

Hilary’s second mistake is to underestimate Obama as a pretty face who gives a good speech. She’s repeatedly underplayed this, referring to him as the man who ‘talks about change’ implying that she, the gritty realist, is the only one who can deliver. The fact is though, despite being the best orator in the contest, Obama’s charisma and personality aren’t the only things which Clinton lacks.

The role of the President of the United States is not just that of Commander-in-Chief, nor confined to that of Chief Executive. The inhabitant of the White House also happens to be the Head of State, too. Despite what Hilary would like you to believe, Presidents are rarely judged on their legislative programme alone, and their office constitutes far more than a prize to be won on behalf of their party. Indeed, in a Federal government, which, in comparison to European countries, still has a relatively indirect role in the lives of its citizens, the President’s ability to bring change directly through legislation is quite limited. Few, for example, would look back half as fondly on the years of FDR, Kennedy and Reagan if judging them on their legislative record alone.

What makes presidents go down in history as great, within the United States, and overseas, is far less tangible- quite simply, the ability to inspire. The United State’s recovery from economic disaster and restoration of self-confidence almost overnight owed just as much to Franklin Roosevelt’s positive attitude, amiable character and fireside chats as it did The New Deal or anything it achieved. Similarly, in his short time in office, Kennedy achieved relatively little. Nonetheless like a breath of fresh air, the youngest president in history succeeded in embodying the self-belief and faith in progress of his age, just as Reagan, (whatever your view of him), restored faith in the Presidency in the wake of Watergate. As for George Bush, as it turns out, he’ll be remembered less for Iraq or the Patriot Act than the fear and loss of self-belief he exploited and grew in the wake of 9/11. However much Clinton would like to deny it, personality matters, a lot. A president’s ability to inspire people to change can bring far wider consequences than a decision to sign a bill into law.

If it ended there, you still might have a good reason to vote for Hilary. After all, given the mixed results of men like Reagan and JFK, it is questionable whether Americans can afford to chase a potentially ‘great’ president at the expense of playing it safe and putting into the White House a merely ‘good’ one for 8 years. But Obama’s personality, and Clinton’s lack of it, will not just be an asset on the campaign trail, but, once in office, a political one too. The same charisma and eloquence that inspired young people to turn out in droves in Iowa can capture the imaginations of young people across the World. From the streets of Gaza to skeptical Europeans such as myself, the story of how the ’skinny boy with a funny name’, became the most powerful person on the planet has the ability to capture imaginations and re-ignite their belief in a nation built not by kings and aristocrats, but the dreams of the dispossessed and the underfoot.

At home too, Obama’s character can stand for far more than Clinton’s ruthless ambition and technocratic competence. She may be the expert warrior, steeled in the bitter partisan battles of the 1990s, but it is precisely her husband’s inability to win the country wholeheartedly that made those battles a necessity. Ever since the hapless Kerry lost by the single state of Ohio in 2004, ‘Ohio plus one’ has been the mantra of the Democrat establishment, of which Hilary is central. To people for whom the White House is simply a prize, the nation divided into irreconcilable ‘red states’ and ‘blue states’, only a few states matter. As long as enough votes are won to tip the balance and deliver their man (or woman) the presidency, that’s just fine. Small wonder, then, when those same marginal states deliver to congress individuals of the opposite party, that they demand the president be ready to battle. A Democrat President fighting, as Bill Clinton did, tooth-and-nail against a Republican congress may, if he’s lucky, achieve change in a trickle, but nothing that a few hanging chads in Florida can’t reverse overnight.

Achieving the kind of lasting, genuine change that Americans of all political stripes desire will mean more than just ‘winning’ a few marginal states, which, with her vast negative ratings, is the best Hilary can expect. At the very least, it will require a sympathetic Congress with more than a razor-thin majority. But it should also go further than that. It’ll mean a fundamental shift of the nation’s political landscape and rely on the ability of a Democrat president to reach out beyond the traditional base. They’ll have to be willing to venture into states such as Mississippi and Alabama, states which, as the poorest in the nation, have much to gain from the Democrat message, and who have been written off as irrevocably ‘red’ for too long. It’ll require framing our arguments in language that evokes not Hillary’s battles of the past, but which builds, as FDR, JFK and LBJ did, a consensus amongst wildly diverse groups of the need to overcome the special interests blocking the corridors of Capitol Hill.

Once in the White House it will also- and Hilary won’t like this- mean relying on more than the winning candidate’s own experience, and beyond a clique of advisors belonging the last party grandee to hold the job. Far more important than such narrow ‘experience’ , will be the humility to listen, as the current administration so often failed to do, to outside experts on foreign and economic matters, to govern in the interests of more than just 51% of the electorate, and the frankness to restore faith and trust once again in the United States and its President. Barack Obama can, and is doing, all of these things. I know who the underqualified candidate is, and it certainly isn’t him.