Madam, - In weighing up the relative merits of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Noel Whelan (Opinion, February 16th) leaves one important ingredient out of the scales: electability. Having been out of the White House for eight years, the Democrats' first aim must be to win it back. They should select the candidate who is most likely to be the choice of uncommitted voters.
Barack Obama has proved himself a phenomenal vote-winner. In all the primaries, Democratic voters have outnumbered Republican voters. Many Democratic voters, particularly young ones, have never participated before but are attracted by the freshness of Obama's politics. In rehearsal elections carried out by pollsters, Obama beats John McCain by a margin of a few per cent; Hilary Clinton barely matches McCain.
Mr Whelan is at a loss to explain Obama's secret. But it is quite simple. To an extent, John McCain and Hilary Clinton are both the opposite of George W. Bush. McCain is the candidate Republicans spurned in 2000. Clinton is the wife of the man who defeated George W. Bush's father. But many Americans are sick of the poisonous atmosphere of national politics. Both parties are triumphalist in victory, bitterly resentful in defeat, and vindictive in competition. The attitude of Bill Clinton to Barack Obama during the South Carolina primary is a good case in point.
Rather than automatically jumping to a polar opposite, many voters want to deliver a sharp shock to the system by choosing the most plausible outsider available. Obama's calls for change and his claim to reach out to Republicans strike a vibrant chord with that constituency. One commentator has said, with only slight exaggeration: "Obama is not just a candidate; he's a movement".- Yours, etc,
TOBY JOYCE, Balreask Manor, Navan, Co Meath.