Earl Moxam - Senior Gleaner Writer
UNITED STATES ambassador to Jamaica, Sue Cobb, has dismissed the notion of a period of uncertainty developing in the United States, in the event that today's presidential election does not immediately produce a clear-cut winner.
Most opinion polls heading into today's voting suggest that the election is too close to call, with the two main candidates, George W. Bush and John F. Kerry, locked in a virtual deadheat.
Many political observers in the U.S. are suggesting that today's results could possibly mirror what happened in 2000, when it took one month and many court battles before the Republican Party's candidate, George W. Bush, secured the crucial Florida electoral votes in the US Supreme Court, which gave him the presidency over the Democratic Party's candidate
Al Gore.
HIGHLY IMPROBABLE
Asked whether a similar period of uncertainty would distract the American government's attention and undermine its vigilance against dangers such as a possible terrorist strike, Ambassador Cobb asserted that this was highly improbable.
"We are extremely well established institutionally. There are plenty of people paying attention to these problems. Neither of the gentlemen running for president this year would abandon their focus on being a commander in chief; neither one of them," she said firmly.
As for talk that the country is deeply divided along party lines, Ambassador Cobb contends that such cleavages are only superficial, going into the election.
But that, she argued, "has nothing to do with our underlying values and how the United States views the world and how United States citizens will operate their lives. After any of our elections people come back together immediately and start pulling for the American dream - freedom, democracy and all the things that we talk about".
The U.S. presidential election is being followed closely around the world, including here in Jamaica.
Many Jamaicans living in states such as Florida have already voted, under provisions which allow early voting ahead of the official election day, in what many experts have described as one of the most important presidential elections in U.S. history.
