IN the evening of June 13, in the quasi-medieval atmosphere of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, a liberal arts university founded by the Saint Benedict Order in 1889, seven politicians were presented to enter – given their number and the media coverage – what could be considered the beginning of the battle within the Republican Party for the nomination of the presidential candidate for the November 2012 elections.

The candidates had already made their obligatory approach to the front men of U.S. economic interests in order to obtain financial backing for their campaigns. While these contacts (a kind of necessary ordeal) are a known political practice in the country and the main source of direct funding of what are extremely costly election campaigns – in the case of presidentials running into hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars – the details of these encounters are never made public, in particular commitments or agreements of a political nature guaranteeing the basis of this economic support.

The contacts take place in strict confidentiality in order not to tarnish the supposed democratic nature of these electoral proceedings. But it is a fact that these bonds between potential candidates and the formal or informal representatives of large business interests are a necessary, while insufficient condition, for a candidate to underwrite his or her political campaign.

In July, all the presidential candidates have to account to electoral authorities for funding that they have received directly (funds that supposedly non-party organizations spend in indirect support of a candidate do not have to be registered). At that point we will cover in more detail this extremely important and fundamental aspect of the not at all democratic U.S. elections.

The presidential debate was broadcast live at peak viewing time by CNN and was additionally sponsored by the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper and WMUR-TV, both local.

It lasted two hours and the seven candidates present were: Mitt Romney, ex-governor of Massachusetts and luckless aspirant to the presidential elections in 2008, in the lead according to opinion polls; Tim Pawlenty, ex-governor of Minnesota and a finalist among Republican candidates in 2008, when John McCain was assessing him as his vice president; Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, also for Minnesota and a favorite of the Tea Party movement; Newt Gingrich (caught up in a run of political bad luck which could put him out of the contest); Herman Cain, former business executive and a political TV commentator; Rick Santorum, former Senator for Pennsylvania; and Ron Paul, ex-Congressman for Texas and a veteran leader of the minute libertarian tendency.

Absent from the event were three other pretenders: Jon Huntsman, Obama’s ex-ambassador to China and former governor of Utah who, it is said, is to announce his aspiration on June 21 standing in front of the Statue of Liberty as Ronald Reagan did in 1980; Rick Perry, governor of Texas, who could be a strong candidate if he decides to join the process; and Sarah Palin, star of the Tea Party movement, running mate of John McCain in 2008 and former governor of Alaska, who has not as yet decided whether to stand.

According to a June 13 Gallup poll published before the debate, Romney has a comfortable 24% advantage over the other candidates among Republican voters, followed by Sarah Palin with 16%; Cain, 9%; Paul, 7%; Pawlenty, 6%; Santorum, 6%; Bachmann, 5%; Gingrich, 5%; Huntsman, 1%; and Perry, 1%. Apart from Romney, none of these politicians has more than a 10% preference. A veritable game of mini-doses.

Given that, with the exception of Romney, none of the aspirants is known at national level, everyone’s objective was to present a pleasant front to television viewers, and so they avoided attacking each other (in particular the leader, Romney). Neither did they go deeply into electoral issues other than to criticize Obama for the economic situation, unemployment and the health system.

The general opinion in the U.S. press is that Romney profited most from the debate and that Bachmann managed to seize the highest personal advantage when, in her initial speech, she surprisingly announced that she had already begun the paperwork to formalize her presidential aspiration and captivated conservative Republicans with the most attractive performance. In terms of the others, to be noted was Pawlenty’s failure to take the opportunity to confront Romney to his own advantage, and the anodyne participation of Gingrich, Santorum and Paul.

In terms of Gingrich, an expert in managing political and electoral dodges, things have not gone well for him and he might well be on his way out. His campaign team abandoned him en masse just before the debate because of what Gingrich himself described as differences in campaign strategy. And, right after it, the ABC network made public that a non-profit organization exempt from taxes created by Gingrich, registered under the name of Renewing American Leadership and dedicated to promoting faith, the family, freedom and free trade, paid another profit-making Gingrich company $200,000 for crates of books and DVDs produced by a third company, also owned by the politician. Specialists on the matter say that this is in violation – if not of the letter – at least of the spirit of legislation regulating relations between non-profit organizations and companies.

The debate called attention to the positions of most of these politicians on the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Libya, to which the last 15 minutes of the program were dedicated. As opposed to the typical bellicose posture of conservative Republicans, on this occasion a less belligerent and aggressive position was perceived and mentioned by commentators, with the candidates distancing themselves from continuing wars. Romney said that it was time to bring the troops home as soon as possible, while making that conditional on the views of military chiefs on the ground. Pawlenty said that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is not to stay there for ever or for 10 years more in order to reconstruct the country. Bachmann’s view was that Obama’s decision to involve the United States militarily in Libya was a substantial error. Gingrich said that the price label is always a factor when deciding whether to get involved in a military action.

For the moment, these statements have to be interpreted as the electoral campaign strategies of the Republican aspirants, in the midst of an ongoing confrontation between Congress and Obama on the interpretation of the Congress Resolution of 1973 on war powers, concerning which Republican John A. Boehner, president of the House, has sent a letter to Obama, ordering him to give an explanation of U.S. actions in Libya to Congress on the basis of what is established in the 1973 resolution, by June 17, or to stand up to a confrontation between the legislative and executive power as to the constitutional authority of one or the other.

This is the situation of the electoral campaign. There is still a long way to go, seven months before the first primaries between the Republican aspirants and much water to flow under the bridge, but the starting pistol has sounded. Meanwhile, the electoral financiers will continue observing the conduct of the candidates in order to decide where their money is best placed.