COMMENT

On the face of it, it's rather surprising that as many as nine leading Democrats want to become their party's presidential candidate at next year's election in the United States. Eight presented themselves in the first debate of the campaign last weekend and Senator Bob Graham of Florida added his name yesterday; he has twice been elected governor of Florida and three times its Senator, and can claim “I've never lost an election”. If the polls are to be believed, George W Bush should have no difficulty is winning a second term of office and whoever opposes him will be on a hiding to nothing. Fortunately, democracies don't always work in that predictable way and it is a fact that Mr Bush is much less admired for his economic policies than for his leadership in war. It would be the ultimate irony if he were to suffer the same fate as his father, winning a Gulf War but losing a second–term election that proved to be about “the economy, stupid”. Senator Joseph Lieberman, Al Gore's running mate in 2000, is a strong contender. “I can beat Bush; I already have” was a good line at the debate but he has been a staunch supporter of Mr Bush's war and may therefore alienate Democratic voters opposed to it. Representaative Richard Gephardt, another early frontrunner, believes that President Bush's tax-cut proposals should be opposed and the money spent instead on a costly national health care programme. Other contenders think this would look like “big-spending Democratic ideas of the past” which the electorate no longer believes in. These are early days. There's still time for a dark horse to join the race.