I was in the United States of America in the last week of May. It was, to put it in perspective, the week Hillary Clinton argued that more people had voted for her than for Obama and said “this is nowhere near over.” It was the week before the media started hailing Obama as the Democratic nominee, the week before Hillary finally, reluctantly, put down her boxing gloves and said she would exit the race.

We had been following the highs and lows of the Clinton and Obama campaigns in the news over the past months, the net gains and losses in the numbers of states and delegates. In America, I was eager to get a sense, not just of the numbers, but of what the people were saying, and how they were choosing. Having lived in America through both the Bush elections, I was excited to be back during this election that promised such big changes.

My first evening in New York, I met Ayca, a young academic and anti-war activist teaching at Columbia University. When I asked Ayca how she chose Obama over Hillary, she looked at me, shocked that I didn’t know that Obama was the obvious choice — he was the dynamic one, the only one who actually has a stance against the war.

“There is something hypnotic about him,” my friend Hovig said, “he hypnotises people when he speaks.” Hovig is an artist, in his fifties, originally from Armenia and married to a blue-eyed American woman, with two grown American children. “It’s not because his policies are better?” I asked. “I don’t know what all the policies are,” he said, “I know he makes sense when he speaks, he has that power.” His sisters, he said, are glued to the TV when Obama talks.

... contd.