Robert Taylor says all three Democratic hopefuls offer the prospect of a more progressive White House
THE Democratic Party presidential primaries are electrifying American politics. Barack Obama’s convincing victory in the Iowa caucus has been followed by an extraordinary comeback from Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. The prospect of seeing the first American woman president is now looking more likely, but it is still possible that next January a black American will take charge of the White House. Or, after the 71-year-old Republican John McCain’s own victory in New Hampshire, the United States may elect the oldest president in its history. The 2008 presidential contest looks set to be one of the most dramatic in more than a century.
The New Hampshire result suggests it was always premature to write off Clinton. Much will now hang on the outcome of the “Super Tuesday†primaries to be held on February 5 when 22 states, including large ones such as New York, California and Illinois, go to the polls. Clinton has re-established herself as the Democratic frontrunner. It is true she was blown away in Iowa by what can only be described as the mesmerising phenomenon of Obama, but his charisma was less appealing to New Hampshire voters.
In spite of his setback in New Hampshire, Obama will have changed the shape of the election campaign and, possibly, of American politics. Anyone who heard Obama’s victory speech in Iowa in its entirety cannot but be moved by what he had to say. His elegant cadences have been likened to the language of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in the 1960s. They appeal to the better nature of Americans – to what Obama has called “the audacity of hopeâ€. After seven years of the worst American president in America’s history, he evokes the radical promise of a genuinely new politics based on conscience and reform that stretches across the conventional boundaries of party. Obama appeals to the young and to the so-called independent voters who describe themselves neither as Democrat nor Republican. More importantly, he has galvanised hundreds of thousands of Americans who normally display little interest in electoral participation.
But Obama is not a conventional party politician and this may prove to be part of the reason for his setback in New Hampshire. He attacks the corporate lobbyists who dominate the political system. He is proud to run for office beholden to no special financial interests. His engaging personality has somehow managed to transcend the divisions of race. Unlike any previous black American aspirants for the presidency – notably Jesse Jackson – Obama’s appeal stretches across the national electorate. But among traditional Democratic voters he lags behind Clinton.
Of course, the current political mood cannot be judged by two primary results in two small states. The Republican hate machine can soon be expected to get to work and seek to demonise Obama and Clinton. Obama can be painted as an unknown with a peculiar name who is not really American at all. People may not be openly racist nowadays, but the dark shadow of racism has not gone away. It was 40 years ago, in 1968, that Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated.As challengers to the ruling system, Obama and his family will need enormous protection if he is to reach the White House.
What should excite any observer from the British left, the apparent renewal of a progressive politics of conscience and reform. It is compelling Clinton to emphasise that she is as much a candidate of change as Obama or John Edwards. In her struggle with Obama,we can expect to see further evidence of a shift in Democratic politics in a more radical direction. Unlike Edwards, who is a true populist in the tradition of American dissidents, Obama may not be an easily definable figure of the left. But nor is he a figure of the status quo. He is the change candidate who questions the conventional wisdom. But this may prove to be the unresolved contradiction in his popular appeal that has its limitations. He calls for a bipartisan approach to politics, to end the tribal divisions of red and blue states, but also evokes a moral view of democratic values that eschews the kind of compromises and collaborations that a bipartisan approach would require. He wants to reach out to independents and moderate Republicans and is attempting is doing so without apparent cynicism or sense of cold calculation. Whether this will be enough is another matter.
Clinton has called for a “reality check†on Obama and warns she has more experience in getting things done. Her camp portrays Obama rather patronisingly as naive and vulnerable. This message appears to have worked in New Hampshire. But her main opponent is evoking the distant chords of memory that seem to appeal to a surprising number of American voters who have grown sickened by what they see as the sleaze and corruption of contemporary politics. Obama may be providing them with a better, optimistic and more uplifting narrative. But is this what people are really hankering for at the moment as their country heads into economic recession and a dangerous international outlook in the Middle East?
For perhaps the first time – and without any sense of grudge or anger – Obama seems to be overcoming the once deep fissures of race and he is doing this without alarming white Americans. However, this feeling may have already begun to fade and, in the privacy of the polling booth, the old demons may still have the last word. The exit poll evidence from New Hampshire seemed to point to a clear Obama victory, but the eventual outcome suggests widespread hesitancy and doubt among a crucial number of voters about him and his potential for a victory over the Republican candidate who will be a white man.
For the British left, the struggle for the Democratic nomination should provide a welcome inspiration for action. It is a refreshing example of the power for renewal based on principles of social justice and economic equity. At long last, there is a real public policy debate over ends and means in a liberal democracy going on in the US and with it a re-examination of the purposes of the public interest, civil society and what constitutes the moral citizen. This discussion remains tentative and fuzzy, but a new language of politics appears to be emerging that threatens the conservative order that has dominated since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.
It is just over 100 years ago that the progressive movement emerged in the US to challenge, humanise and regulate the first global capitalism. It combined moral aspiration with programmatic politics that was to some extent bipartisan as it crossed traditional party lines. In many ways it is Edwards, more than Obama or Clinton, who seems to draw inspiration from those days as he battles on behalf of the threatened middle classes against Wall Street, the lobbyists and the vested interests whose greed and power have brought inequalities of wealth and income not seen in the US since the 1890s. But all the Democratic candidates are tapping into a national, popular mood for change that is emerging out of the brutality and squalor of the Bush years. To the world outside the US, this is encouraging news. George Bush’s unilateral imperialism has created enemies and critics of the country across the globe. The prisons at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have come to symbolise the Bush years as torture has become an instrument of US policy.
Obama is not naive and he is well aware of the difficulties and dilemmas he would face as president. Clinton believes she is already tried and tested. Either would have to govern in a turbulent and dangerous world. But both seem willing to practise conciliation, co-operation, multilateralism, working through the United Nations and other international institutions. Moreover the presence of either in the White House would reveal to the world a different, friendlier and more idealistic America.
It is possible the inspiration could soon evaporate if the Republican candidate for the presidency seeks to play on the fears of white Americans and those who do not want a woman as president. That party’s attack machine has a well-deserved reputation for its mendacity and ruthlessness. It can be guaranteed to go for Obama as a subversive threat to the American way of life and denigrate Clinton with an undertone of sexism and misogyny. It is going to be a long and hard road – whoever wins the Democratic nomination.
This is why November 2008 could go down as one of the most decisive contests in American history, comparable to 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected president, 1932 when Franklin Roosevelt won and 1980 when Ronald Reagan declared it was morning again in America and created the inequitable and divisive nation with which the Clintons and their New Democrats collaborated.
But there remains one growing danger that no one – except Edwards – is talking about at the moment in the American primaries – the spectre of a severe economic recession. The avarice and recklessness of the financial elites is threatening to destabilise the economic system. The current promise of Clinton or Obama cannot be denied, but the grim economic and social realities of 2008 are going to test their resolve and that of their party in the months ahead – even if it makes November’s presidential election one that is for the Democrats to lose.
