The Republican Party in the United States appears in dire need of inspiration. It should acquire it from Alcides Moreno, a window cleaner in New York who entered America from Ecuador. He was working 47 storeys up alongside his brother when scaffolding collapsed, sending him plunging to the ground.

His sibling, sadly, was killed instantly but Mr Moreno has astonished doctors by surviving. He is talking and has movement everywhere. He could stage a full recovery by the end of this year. It has been dubbed “the miracle on 66th Street”.

Can the Republicans do the same? Not if the odds are to be believed. According to those who trade in the political futures market (a strange and sad bunch) the party has but a 38 per cent chance of retaining the Oval Office. In a two-horse race this is not an especially encouraging statistic.

This partly explains why all the buzz and most of the attention in this election is on the Democrats’ side of the political aisle. It has to be conceded that “Will it be the first black President or the first female President?” is a compelling story. The Republican version - “Will it be the 44th white male President?” does not cut the mustard.

A race like a crackpot Dynasty

The contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton matches any fiction

Multimedia

• Full coverage: US elections

BACKGROUND

• The ascent of Barack Obama, Mr Charisma

• Decay, jobs and guns fall under the spotlight

• Free trade: Clinton/Obama's mistakes

The fame factor was also manifest in the Iowa caucuses. Hillary Clinton is universally recognised and Barack Obama was already pretty prominent. For most Americans, the Republican bun-fight was a spat between some Baptist hick they had barely heard of and a millionaire Mormon who was faintly more familiar. If the Democrats were playing pure Hollywood - a kind of Nicole Kidman takes on Will Smith epic - then all that the Republicans were serving up to the nation was The Dukes of Hazzard versus the Osmonds.

Nor is this simply a matter of impressions and personalities. That 38 per cent figure reflects three deeper factors.

First, history is plainly against the Republican Party. It is always hard for a team that has held the White House for eight years to hang on to it with a new contender. It has occurred once in the postwar era (George Bush Sr, 1988) and that was at a moment of peace and prosperity, not conflict and a looming recession. Secondly, there is the ball and chain that is George W. Bush’s approval rating. This is today at 35 per cent, where it has been stuck more or less ever since Hurricane Katrina and the inept reaction to it blew his second term straight out of the water in 2005.

Finally, while the Democrat battle has narrowed down to two serious contenders already, a handful remain in the frame for the Republicans. There are observers who say that none of the five will secure a majority in the primaries and the saga will have to be settled at the national convention in September. Will it be as bad as the 1924 Democrat affair when the delegates sat for 15 days, spending many of them disputing whether to condemn the Ku Klux Klan (they did not) and whether they disliked prohibition (the “wets”) or favoured banning booze (“the drys”)? They took 103 ballots before picking a nominee who was doomed from the outset.

Actually, the Republican position is nowhere near that desperate. There are three countervailing reasons why it is a lot more rosy than that 38 per cent would indicate. One is that none of the Republican possibilities is perceived as “the Bush candidate” and none of them has to be. They can offer change, too. Mike Huckabee won in Iowa despite deriding his own President’s approach to foreign affairs. There is further room for the nominee to steer his own policy course. Next, there is the Democrat-controlled Congress. It was elected just 14 months ago but has already managed the challenging feat of becoming less popular than the Bush Administration. This Congress has a 25 per cent approval rating - only two points higher than Richard Nixon recorded on the eve of resigning to avoid impeachment. A smart Republican will run against Capitol Hill this year.

And there is also the Democratic presidential contender. Senator Clinton is a highly polarising figure who struggles to persuade half of Americans in opinion polls that they would back her. Senator Obama is far less loathed, but he has a record and a rhetoric that is much more liberal than the typical US voter. He is eminently beatable - but only by a moderate Republican with an established reputation who commands respect beyond the party faithful.

That 38 per cent is, in reality, an average. It would be much higher if John McCain or Rudy Giuliani were the winner (although the former Mayor of New York seems less likely to be the victor now) and lower still if Mr Huckabee or Mitt Romney were the party’s champion. It might be dead accurate in the incredible event that Fred Thompson ended up being selected.

For the Republicans, therefore, it has become (barring a stunning turnabout for Giuliani) Senator McCain or bust. He could yet be their salvation. But he must start in New Hampshire tomorrow by defeating Romney and slaughtering Giuliani. His chances are improved by the fact that this state allows both Republicans and independents to take part in its primary;these nonpartisan outsiders have long found McCain attractive.

The struggle then shifts to Michigan, which has an open primary in which anyone of any political inclination whatsoever can join in the fun, and from there to South Carolina, which has a similarly (to British eyes) anarchic system. If Senator McCain wins there too, the Giuliani crusade will be over after the Florida primary on January 29 and McCain could be home and dry when 19 states vote a week later.

It is this scenario, almost alone, that provides the Republicans with hope of a “miracle on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” that allows them to retain the presidency. It would be doubly appropriate if McCain were to be the Alcides Moreno of American politics. Six months ago his candidacy was in the same shape that the Ecuadorean is now. He is also the one man in the Republican field to be sympathetic to the humble immigrant.

Times Recommends

• It’s the beginning of the affair
• Afghanistan: still a price worth paying
• Heroes of the downtrodden