Democratic Senator Barack Obama has opened a nine-point lead over Republican Senator John McCain in the US presidential race amid turmoil in the financial system and growing pessimism about the economy, according to a Washington Post-ABC News national opinion poll released yesterday.
Among likely voters, the poll found Obama now leads McCain by 52 percent to 43 percent. Two weeks ago the race was essentially even, with McCain at 49 percent and Obama at 47 percent, the Post reported.
The financial crisis brought on the collapse of the credit market has become the No. 1 issue leading up to the Nov. 4 presidential election.
PHOTO: AP
Fifty-two percent of those polled said they believe the economy has moved into a serious long-term decline.
Eighty percent said they are concerned about the overall direction of the economy, nearly three-quarters worry about the shocks to the stock market and six in 10 are apprehensive about their own family finances, the newspaper said.
Half of the respondents called the economy and jobs the single most important issue that will determine their vote, up from 37 percent two weeks ago.
The poll found Obama has a big edge as the candidate who is more in tune with the economic problems Americans now face, the Post said.
The Illinois senator also has a double-digit advantage on handling the current problems on Wall Street, and as a result, there has been a rise in his overall support, the report said.
Neither Obama nor McCain, an Arizona senator, has said he would oppose the US President George W. Bush administration’s financial industry bailout plan being negotiated with Congress, although both have been critical of it.
But the US$700 billion price tag would almost certainly restrict the agenda and limit the number of costly programs advocated by whoever becomes the next president.
Less than six weeks before the election, independents now favor Obama, 53 percent compared with 39 percent for McCain. McCain had a small lead among these swing voters just after the Republican convention.
Two weeks ago, McCain had a substantial advantage among white voters. Now the candidates run evenly among white women, and Obama has narrowed the overall gap among white voters to five percentage points, the Post said.
Meanwhile, Chicago police found a gun in the car of a man arrested on Tuesday near Obama’s home, although the US Secret Service insisted the man never posed a threat to the presidential candidate.
The apparently intoxicated man was not armed when he was arrested as he approached security barriers posted with no-access signs a block from the home in the South Side neighborhood, Chicago police spokesman Daniel O’Brien said.
Police later searched his nearby car and found the gun, O’Brien said.
The man’s name was not immediately released because he had not been charged and Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley said it did not appear the man would face federal charges. O’Brien said city police were still considering charges on Tuesday.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS