VZCZCXYZ0012
OO RUEHWEB
DE RUEHSO #0011 0101431
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 101431Z JAN 08
FM AMCONSUL SAO PAULO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7809
INFO RHEHNSC/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PRIORITY 8952
RUEHRI/AMCONSUL RIO DE JANEIRO PRIORITY 8525
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC 3001
UNCLAS SAO PAULO 000011
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
STATE INR/R/MR; IIP/R/MR; WHA/PD
DEPT PASS USTR
USDOC 4322/MAC/OLAC/JAFEE
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR OPRC OIIP ETRD BR
SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION: U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS; SAO PAULO
"Democrat Fascination"
Center-right national circulation daily O Estado de S. Paulo (1/10)
editorialized: "In addition to the natural impact of the
dramatization of politics in the media, there are several factors
combined to explain the unprecedented interest in the complicated
process, especially because it seems focused on only one party, the
Democratic, which has been in the opposition for eight years and now
has everything to return to the White House in November.... What
monopolizes the world's attention at the moment is the identity of
the Democrat candidate, whose responsibility will be to restore the
U.S. moral leadership that George W. Bush diligently dilapidated.
The main reason for such a curiosity is the expectation that the
president to be inaugurated in January 2009 will be what none of the
predecessors was: either a woman, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, or
an Afro American, Senator Barack Hussein Obama."
White