So the American primaries are over. No one can say they were bored.

All that remains of Julius Caesar

In the end a bruised but elevated Barack Obama triumphed deservedly over his street-fighting Moll opponent, Hillary Clinton. Whatever anyone thought of the outcome, it was a bravura spectacle on both sides.

Here’s a quick recap of what I posted here nearly four months ago – this is to allow you to assess Syntagma’s forecasting skills.

America’s Presidential election could be decided by which of the three big isms — racism, sexism and ageism — the country is least susceptible to. [...]

1. Do Americans want the Clintons back in the White House?
I would wager a big cigar they don’t.

2. Is John McCain too old?
The country that re-elected Ronald Reagan is not going to be put off by a man of 70.

3. Will America go with Obama’s left/liberal internationalist agenda?
Apart from a few white supremacists, I don’t think this election will turn specifically on race. Obama cuts across many traditional boundaries in the population and has an intellectual stature that suggests it will not. But in the campaign proper, his policies will be increasingly examined. [...]

In a year that’s made for the Democratic party, its two, admittedly impressive, candidates are likely to eliminate themselves by recent memories of past imperfections on the one hand, and an excessive zeal for the lost world of the sub-Marx master plan on the other. [...]

My guess is that [McCain] will win in a tight finish. But not so tight that we again become absorbed by the hanging chads of Florida.

Well, not too bad so far. We got the Democratic candidate right and I think a tight finish is almost guaranteed, especially as Obama lacks Hillary’s clout in the big swing states.

After the scintillating primary campaigns, I’m more certain than ever of my final prediction — that John McCain will be the next President of the United States. I believe Obama may be also … but in four or eight years.

Whenever I watch Obama speak, I’m reminded of a young Tony Blair before he became British Prime Minister, minus the prancing show pony act. The same certainties are there, the evangelistic language bordering on the biblical, the near-identical belief in the nostrums of left/liberalism.

Still to come for the young(ish) Senator from Illinois is the realization that none of these things work in the end. He should look at Labour Britain after 11 years of Blair and Brown. A wasteland of lost hopes and dreams as substandard politicians, drawn almost exclusively from the student activist class, recognize the awful truth: that life is too complicated to be micro-managed by government. Years of simplistic formulations driven by secondhand idealism, not truth, inevitably end in failure.

So who will be the new American Caesar?

During the coming campaign, I believe America will awaken to the fact that decisions have to be taken at the point of maximum competence — or as near it as possible. And that’s not by a government machine.

McCain may not be perfect, but he surely knows that to be true.

America’s Presidential election could be decided by which of the three big isms — racism, sexism and ageism — the country is least susceptible to.

The three remaining runners are a woman, a black man, and an oldie of 71. It’s a bit like the cast of characters in a satirical comic strip. Whatever happened to the seven boring dwarfs of recent memory?

The opening salvo of questions, though, is quite simple :

1. Do Americans want the Clintons back in the White House?
I would wager a big cigar that they don’t.

2. Is John McCain too old?
The country that re-elected Ronald Reagan is not going to be put off by a man of 70.

3. Will America go with Obama’s hard-Left internationalist agenda?
Apart from a few white supremacists, I don’t think this election will turn on race. Obama cuts across many traditional boundaries in the population and has an intellectual stature that suggests it will not. But in the campaign proper, his policies will increasingly be examined.

I understand that Obama has refused to pledge allegiance to his country. The American President is not just a head of government, like the British Prime Minister, but a Head of State, like the Queen. How can a man who refuses to pledge allegiance to his country become Head of State?

His wife seems to have given the game away when she claimed she has never been proud of her country — until now, that is, when she has a chance of living in the White House. In an American context, that could open up a chasm of resentment.

Obama’s policies remind me of New Labour in Britain : high public spending on social services, an internationalism that puts one’s country second, and a creepy social Marxism. As we have discovered, that’s a lethal mixture that progressively destroys the social and economic fabric of the nation.

Policywise, Obama seems to be like all the other Democrat losers of recent times — McGovern, Dukakis, Kerry, etc. In the end, he may well conjure up the same fate.

In a year that’s made for the Democrats, their two, admittedly impressive, candidates are likely to eliminate themselves by recent memories of past imperfections on the one hand, and an excessive zeal for the lost world of the sub-Marx master plan on the other.

This may just leave the field open for the galloping oldie. I must say, McCain would be my first choice if I had a vote. He’s a world away from the Neocon head-bangers who have dominated the White House in recent years, and his policy agenda is one of measured consideration rather than overturning the tables of the temple.

McCain is a genuine war hero. He spent six years in the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam under extremes of torture. He won’t send American boys into battle unless it’s absolutely necessary. And, having a simple pride in his country, he won’t precipitately withdraw them either.

Oil was the real story of Iraq, and that essential commodity is still to be fought for. McCain is not going to leave the Middle East to Al Qaeda.

As for his economic policies, they can’t possibly be worse than Obama’s or Clinton’s — or even the strange excesses of George W Bush.

His master stroke would be to declare that he expects only to stand for one term because of his age — but will consider his options toward the end of a first term. He might also pick a genuine Presidential figure as his running mate in case of accidents.

My guess is that he will win in a tight finish. But not so tight that we again become absorbed by the hanging chads of Florida.