Taipei, Nov. 7 (CNA) Candidates of both the Republican and Democratic parties of the 2008 U.S. presidential election are unlikely to elaborate on their positions on the Taiwan issue during the campaign because the main focus is the war in Iraq, a U.S. political analyst said Wednesday.
Foreign policy has generated much more attention than usual in the long U.S. presidential campaign process that started surprisingly early, but most of the focus and debate has been on the war in Iraq, although "the Bush Administration has been strong in maintaining U.S. commitment to Taiwan over the years, " said Allan Lichtman, a political analyst for CNN Headline News.
Speaking in a digital video conference organized by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) , Lichtman described the 2008 U.S. presidential election as "interesting" and a "transitional election," as there will be a major presidential transition and the most wide-open nomination in the two parties.
More than 100 professors and students from universities discussed with Lichtman the outlook of the U.S. presidential primary elections in the video conference that connected Washington, Taipei and Kaohsiung.
The U.S. is at a crossroads, especially in its foreign policy, Lichtman said, as the Bush Administration has an approval rating of around only 30 percent. However, the Democrats, who control the U.S. Congress, have not been doing well either, having failed to change U.S. policy, he said.
In the 40-minute speech, Lichtman addressed the audience with background information on the election and a number of the hopefuls, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of the Democratic Party and Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney of the Republican Party.
"Most voters feel shaky about the economy, but the war overshadows all the other issues in the campaign, " he said.
He also talked about the impact of fund-raising, polling, interest groups, and social and moral issues on the primaries.