Economist extract

Besides looking presidential, a candidate must avoid gaffes. In 1976, Gerald Ford denied that Poland was dominated by the Soviet Union. In 1980, Jimmy Carter said he asked his 13-year-old daughter what the most important issue facing the nation was. (She said nuclear weapons.) Voters concluded that one man was blind and the other needed more mature advisers. Both lost.

So far this year, no candidate has committed a fatal howler, but there have been several slips. Mr McCain said that earmarks (lawmakers’ pet projects) had tripled in the past five years, when their value has fallen. Mr Obama looked at his wrist to remind himself of the name of the fallen American soldier whose bracelet he wears. During the vice-presidential debate on October 2nd, Joe Biden was under the impression that America drove Hizbullah out of Lebanon, and boasted about hanging out with ordinary folks in a restaurant that has been closed for many years. Sarah Palin, meanwhile, avoided difficult questions by asking her own and then answering them.

Every debater secretly yearns to be Abraham Lincoln, who spoke brilliantly about issues that still seem important a century and a half later. Stephen Douglas, his rival in 1858 for a Senate seat now occupied by Mr Obama, gave warning that Lincoln would confer “upon the Negro the rights and privileges of citizenship” and “cover your prairies with black settlements”. Douglas was no slouch, but Lincoln was sharper. He said Douglas could “prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse”. To the allegation that he was two-faced, he retorted: “If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one

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