As the week ended the American financial crisis had propelled Democratic candidate Barack Obama seven points ahead of Republican candidate John McCain who had been running neck-to-neck after the Republican Convention.

A Time poll indicated that Obama led McCain 50%-43% overall up from 46%-41% before the two party conventions. After McCain picked 44-year- old Sarah Palin as his running mate at the Republican Convention Obama's lead was just a 1 point margin - 48% to 47%.

Palin's lost charm

A very 'dramatic finding' of the Time poll was that 'McCain is losing female voters faster than Sarah Palin attracted them after the Republican Convention and equally surprising was that white women favour Obama by three points. Obama now leads in the 'married women' category 50% to 44%, the Time poll said. Obama however was weak among white men, McCain having a lead of 57% to 36% overall.

The financial collapse was the main reason for the Obama spurt, pundits analysing the opinion survey polls said. These results however came before the much awaited vice presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

There was some speculation on whether Palin would turn tables on the Democrats at the debate but even those commentators partial towards Palin conceded that Bidden won the debate. However Republican commentators on TV appeared relieved that the neophyte politician had not goofed and performed creditably well even though she had avoided debating foreign policy and other special issues raised by Biden which she did not seem to know very much about.

However it was conceded that Sarah Palin came off as a much more attractive personality than the ageing Biden.

Both candidates went for the jugulars of their rival presidential candidates but it is well known that presidential elections are not won or lost on debates of vice presidential candidates.

This could be even said for debates of presidential candidates as well, it being pointed out that at the 2004 presidential debates, John Kerry came out a clear winner in all three debates against his rival George W. Bush but lost the election.

October surprises

In a very interesting article, Associated Press writer Glen Johnson, points out to what is called the 'October Surprises' in the presidential election. He says that John Kerry during the final weekend of the 2004 election campaign was feeling good about his chances of the White House having bested George Bush in the three prime-time debates and felt he had convinced Americans that his military and foreign affairs experience left him better equipped to end the war in Iraq.

Then Osama bin Laden threw a spanner into the works by issuing a videotape that criticised Bush and warned US voters that 'your security is in your hands' in the election. Kerry is quoted: 'It changed the entire dynamics of the last five days. We saw it in the polling. There was no other intervening event. We saw the polls freeze and then saw them drop a point because all the security moms, it agitated people over 9/11. Whenever you are close to an election, things have more impact, you don't have time to respond, you don't have time to change the dynamics backwards.'

Writer Johnson quotes other examples of the 'October Surprises.' In 1980, one year before election day Iranian radicals stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and seized American hostages. The then incumbent President Jimmy Carter worked throughout his election campaign to secure their release including the ill fated rescue mission that killed eight US servicemen.

Johnson says: 'Critics say that the Reagan team was so concerned that Carter would gain a boost by wining their release just before the election that his campaign manager and another negotiated privately with the Iranians to ensure that it did not happen.' It didn't and Reagan ended up beating Carter. The 52 hostages were released on January 20, 1981- the day Reagan was inaugurated as president.'

It is noted that at least three books on the subject have the term 'October Surprise' in their title although no conspiracy was ever proven.

Obama's vulnerability

Barack Obama's vulnerability has been exposed throughout the campaign. Being the son of a black Kenyan Muslim and white American mother there have been allegations about his Muslim connections although Obama has strongly denied the allegations and reiterated that he was a Christian.

Allegations were made that he had attended an Indonesian Madrassa (school teaching fundamentalist Islam). His former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright caused him so much  embarrassment with his radical anti-American pronouncements that Obama had to publicly disassociate himself from Jeremiah Wright who had even alleged that the US government was capable of planting AIDS  among black Americans.

Al Qaeda potential

Another 'October Surprise' may come to Obama in the form of an al Qaeda threat to the United States. Such a threat it is said would favour McCain, a former US Navy fighter pilot who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five years.

One of McCain's constant refrains in the election campaign has been that his war record and experience makes him a better commander-in-chief of the US forces than Obama who has no experience in this field. However Obama as a US Senator, during the election campaign and in the last presidential debate has demonstrated that he can handle military, security and foreign policy matters to standards expected of a president.

Whether there be an 'October Surprise' for Obama or not he had a 'September Surprise' with the financial crisis which placed him well ahead in the presidential race.

The debate in October is likely to be on the $ 700 billion rescue plan for the failed financial institutions as proposed by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

On Monday the US House of Representatives in a stunning move rejected the plan because the cost of it would have to be borne by the tax payer.