Ready for the last phase of the US presidential elections? Our Special Correspondent will keep you updated on all the latest trends, moves, moods and swings of the Obama-Romney duel
Harsh Desai
It was good to read the New York Times (NYT) this morning saying that Virginia, Colorado, Ohio and Wisconsin are four of the swing states where the US Presidential election will be decided. I am going to be in all these four states over the next eleven days bringing you the latest happenings in the keenly-contested presidential election, which will also decide who is the most powerful man on the planet.
As I leave Westchester for New York on a cool morning—the trees are on fire—the yellows browns and reds are quite spectacular and I cannot but wonder if the US will turn red on 6th November. I am in for a bit of a disappointment on reaching Columbia Law School as Professor Jack Greenberg co-counsel in the iconic case of Brown Vs Board of Education (who argued 40 matters before the Supreme Court) says he is not feeling well and can only talk to me on the phone. So I ask him, “did you imagine in 1954 when the Brown case was argued that America would have a black President in about 50 years after?” He said, “It never crossed my mind”. I asked him, would he have been surprised at such a thought? He replies, “Of course I would have been surprised.”
Revisionists are now arguing that it wasn’t Brown which desegregated America but rather Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, I said to Mr Greenberg. His response was that Brown made the Civil Rights Act possible by bringing about compulsory bussing and desegregation.
I chat a little more about what-ifs and if-nots about the process that ultimately let to Barak Obama being elected the first black President of the US.
I then amble onto Broadway and notice that much has changed. But that is an abiding theme in New York—if you come back after three years, you will not recognise the neighbourhood. Since I am a little early for my next appointment, I step into a small takeout-cum-deli called Nassbaum and Wu where I get talking to an old Indian looking gentleman called Rusi Patel from Karachi who worked at IBM for 30 years, has two kids who are both professors at New York University and who says he is the only independent on the west side of Manhattan.
Patel then launches into a blistering criticism of Obama who he voted for four years ago. He is particularly miffed at the Health Care Bill—“Do you know doctors have stopped taking new patients on medicare because there has been no increase in remuneration? Do you know that the law is completely opaque and indecipherable? Do you know they circumvented the filibuster by making it a money bill? Do you know that not one republican voted for it? Do you know that it will lead to senior rationing?” he fires rapidly. I latch on to the last bit and ask, “Senior rationing, how’s that?” He says, “If you are 85 forget about a hip transplant, you will have to be satisfied with something less? If you are 90, no bypass surgery, they will tell you it is not safe. And how can they bring 50 million people into the scheme all at once? It has to be done gradually and the board, which has no doctors on it, will decide treatments.” I cannot get in a word edge ways in this diatribe, so I say you are the only Republican on the Westside but he says no, he is only independent.
If Patel's view is an indicator of the general mood in America we are in for a change. But keep reading and I will bring you more news and views from the ground over the coming days.
(Harsh Desai has done his BA in Political Science from St Xavier's College & Elphinstone College, Bombay and has done his Master's in Law from Columbia University in the city of New York. He is a practicing advocate at the Bombay High Court.)