Obama, McCain, Maradona?

So its the US election tomorrow and the polls suggest an Obama victory, which is probably a good thing. I was convinced that the US wasn't ready to elect a leader who was a) inexperienced b) black and c) didn't bang on about "God" every 5 minutes. Looks like I was wrong about that  - although there is still time for a last minute crisis to be manufactured.

 Obama has been helped by the economic turmoils I think - even though neither candidate has a solution, and it frankly wouldn't look credible if they did, at least you need some vigour and energy, some capacity to roll up the sleeves and get on with it. McCain looks good for his age and the far from easy life he's had, but vigour, no. Trying to pretend to Cubans that Obama is the rebirth of Fidel isn't helping any either

But still, regardless of who wins, it seems to me that two fundamental issues haven't been addressed - and they never are, in any US elections. 

First of these is, who is actually going to run the country? One of the oddities of a so called democracy is that most of the people with power don't actually get elected by anyone. Kissinger, Rumsfeld, Weinberger, Powell, Rice, Schultz? Not a vote between them. And people write books on their influence on history. So really, it doesn't matter so much who the President is, assuming he's not insane or drunk enough to launch first strike, but who his team is. Who's with Obama? Who's with McCain? No one knows. In a genuine democracy, the whole team would be on the slate so people knew what they were actually voting for. 

In a sense, this is like the appointment of Diego Maradona as Argentina football coach. Is it a good move? Without knowing who he's surrounding himself with, assuming its not vendors of Bolivia's primary export, who can say? Is the abuse or mockery he's been subject to in any way justified? Without knowing who else is part of the team we can't say

Second, what the US really needs is someone who can manage a country in decline. Because there's no doubt that although the US will be important in the world for years to come, its not going to be the strongest economic power for much longer, won't be the engine of the world economy and such will have to give up it right to military primacy and its expectation of controlling the world agenda. This is no surprise - these things are cyclical and its time for the US to have a down cycle. The key is that its leaders recognise it and act accordingly. Can they avoid turning competitors into enemies? Can they learn to be colloborative and gracefully give up some of that power and influence? The US needs a leader who can do that - in much the same way as leaders of the colonial powers accepted the realities of their new position in the world and gracefully, eventually, withdrew. It remains to be seen in Obama or McCain is the right man for that particular job