We fight against terrorists and defend democracy

Barack Obama, who worked for three years as social assistant at South Side, a community organizer in Chicago, is perfectly aware of the real poverty in the United States. However, 37 million Americans are concerned, a proportion much higher than in Europe. Throughout his election campaign, the Democratic candidate has focused on the other hand on middle class tax cuts, avoiding publicly to expand on the remedies to reduce poverty.

However, Obama is no shortage of ideas. On its Web site, under the tab "Poverty" (poverty), he quietly made a series of serious proposals: increase in the minimum wage, creation of "neighbourhood model" with the development of public services (nurseries, nursery) and the strengthening of crime prevention. John McCain, on the other hand, does even not wanted open on its site a heading "poverty".

But why this question was it not addressed publicly by the two candidates Perhaps because only the votes of the poor do not count or that, in any event, they vote Democrats. Obama advisors also probably suggested that middle-class voters are more attracted by tax incentives by great speeches on the poor.

If this question is not in the centre of the concerns of the majority of voters in the United States and the candidates, should not be surprised that elsewhere in the world the poor are, so to speak, become invisible in the long campaign. In addition, Obama has, at the same time, history his family ties to the Kenya and a policy promising to increase external assistance of the United States, in the amount of $ 50 billion by 2012, countries impoverished especially in Africa. All OECD donor countries, the Greece currently is the only to devote a proportion of GDP lower than US to external assistance.

But to the question of how a democratic administration would manage the consequences of the rescue plan of $ 700 billion of Wall Street, the only specific proposal of the Obama candidate, Joe Biden, was to grant, in the debate televised with Republican Sarah Palin, that the crisis require probably Obama back on his promise to double foreign aid. For his part, McCain has never advanced precise figures.

But the poor are not the only forgotten the election campaign.

Barack Obama and John McCain have lamented, both, the death of thousands of US troops in Iraq. But almost not paid attention to the civilian victims of war in that country and Afghanistan. Sarah Palin has also very violently criticized Obama on this last point. According to her, the Democratic Senator would have said: "All that we do in Afghanistan is of bombing villages and killing civilians." She called a "reckless" and "false" comments: "This is not what we do over there." We fight against terrorists and defend democracy.

It is clear that Sarah Palin is correct in saying that "killing civilians" is not "all" as the United States and its allies of NATO in Afghanistan, and, if Obama the implied, he was wrong. But Sarah Palin attacks against Obama have this extraordinary that it considers not useful to mention or deplore the large number of civilian casualties linked to us air strikes in Afghanistan.

The carrier ethical subject of this election campaign has been that of climate change. The objectives of the two candidates are very close. Both, they propose a system of exchange of carbon credits to reductions in gas greenhouse by 2050. Obama wants a reduction of 80 and 66 McCain, but as the next President does exercise more mandate to the White House in 2016 at the latest, the difference is off-topic. What does finally not to much the candidates and allows them to overshadow the other topics.