Sunday, December 10, 2006
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA OR PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON ?
____________________________________________
Today, The NYT has an article – mostly fluff – asking whether the country is ready for either a woman (Hillary Clinton) or an African-American (Barack Obama) to be President.
Someone other than a white male as President?
A friend in England asked me how realistic it is to expect a Hillary presidency. Here is my answer:
I think the issue of how realistic her potential Presidency is, has to be answered in two parts.
1. Given the way the US political system works, the two major parties will nominate their candidates for the Presidency. Barring some cataclysmic change – never happened before – one of these two will be President. (NB - these points are obvious to Americans but not a part of everyday awareness for people in UK).
So, the real question is whether Hillary can win the Democratic party’s nomination. The answer to that is clearly yes. She has ENORMOUS support and ENORMOUS money. The liberals will find her completely acceptable and Bill Clinton has built a HUGE reservoir of goodwill among the African-American and Hispanic communities. Three roadblocks for her are
i. her unyielding support for the war in Iraq (she’s tried to distance herself by saying it was poorly executed) is going to become a big negative and I don’t see much forgiveness in the American people unless it is managed carefully from a PR perspective (i.e., a big splash about how it was “Patriotic” to support the President, the Troops, AND the concept of America’s goal to improve the lot of mankind by opposing oppression and tyranny. – You can see how delicate this is and how easily it could blow up in her face.);
ii. she is a polarizing figure even within the Democratic party and part of the debate is going to be whether she can win on the national stage – my guess is that the Democrats are so used to putting up weirdos in the context of the national stage that this is not as big a problem as Republicans and more rational people think;
iii. Obama – this guy is taking off like a rock star and could easily capture the minds and hearts of the Democrats voting in primaries. The Governor-elect of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick had a similar rock star experience and sailed in with well over 60% of the vote. His victory shows how dangerous it is to dismiss candidates based on race or gender.
2. On the national stage, if McCain is the Republican nominee, his support of the war will cancel out Hillary’s. My guess is that the country is more likely to vote in a “moderate” republican than an ultra liberal Democrat, but much of this depends on how remote the memory of Republican corruption and bungling is and how things turn out in Iraq – for example, if we have withdrawn and left Iraq to smolder, while it may be occasion for a lot of “tut-tutting” there may be little impact on who the NEXT president is going to be. The mid-term elections showed a lot of voter dissatisfaction with Republicans over Iraq, but the closeness of many of the elections suggest that the voting populace does not see a shift to the Democrats as a panacea. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can ignite the American imagination with a desire to see serious progress on social issues the Democrats can win easily. The days of Republican fear mongering seem to be over.
In short, I think the question of whether a woman or an African-American can win are national election issues and while there will be a few die-hard right-wing yahoos who will vote no for those reasons, the country has evolved substantially and I really don’t see this as an issue. It’s perhaps not safe to hold Massachusetts up as proving how the American people at large will vote (after all, this is the only state McGovern won) but Massachusetts has been at the forefront of much of what is positive change in American thought and a precursor for political change (after all, this is the only state that voted against Nixon – same election as McGovern!).
Cheerz ... Bwana
________________________________________________
Today, The NYT has an article – mostly fluff – asking whether the country is ready for either a woman (Hillary Clinton) or an African-American (Barack Obama) to be President.
Someone other than a white male as President?
A friend in England asked me how realistic it is to expect a Hillary presidency. Here is my answer:
I think the issue of how realistic her potential Presidency is, has to be answered in two parts.
1. Given the way the US political system works, the two major parties will nominate their candidates for the Presidency. Barring some cataclysmic change – never happened before – one of these two will be President. (NB - these points are obvious to Americans but not a part of everyday awareness for people in UK).
So, the real question is whether Hillary can win the Democratic party’s nomination. The answer to that is clearly yes. She has ENORMOUS support and ENORMOUS money. The liberals will find her completely acceptable and Bill Clinton has built a HUGE reservoir of goodwill among the African-American and Hispanic communities. Three roadblocks for her are
i. her unyielding support for the war in Iraq (she’s tried to distance herself by saying it was poorly executed) is going to become a big negative and I don’t see much forgiveness in the American people unless it is managed carefully from a PR perspective (i.e., a big splash about how it was “Patriotic” to support the President, the Troops, AND the concept of America’s goal to improve the lot of mankind by opposing oppression and tyranny. – You can see how delicate this is and how easily it could blow up in her face.);
ii. she is a polarizing figure even within the Democratic party and part of the debate is going to be whether she can win on the national stage – my guess is that the Democrats are so used to putting up weirdos in the context of the national stage that this is not as big a problem as Republicans and more rational people think;
iii. Obama – this guy is taking off like a rock star and could easily capture the minds and hearts of the Democrats voting in primaries. The Governor-elect of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick had a similar rock star experience and sailed in with well over 60% of the vote. His victory shows how dangerous it is to dismiss candidates based on race or gender.
2. On the national stage, if McCain is the Republican nominee, his support of the war will cancel out Hillary’s. My guess is that the country is more likely to vote in a “moderate” republican than an ultra liberal Democrat, but much of this depends on how remote the memory of Republican corruption and bungling is and how things turn out in Iraq – for example, if we have withdrawn and left Iraq to smolder, while it may be occasion for a lot of “tut-tutting” there may be little impact on who the NEXT president is going to be. The mid-term elections showed a lot of voter dissatisfaction with Republicans over Iraq, but the closeness of many of the elections suggest that the voting populace does not see a shift to the Democrats as a panacea. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can ignite the American imagination with a desire to see serious progress on social issues the Democrats can win easily. The days of Republican fear mongering seem to be over.
In short, I think the question of whether a woman or an African-American can win are national election issues and while there will be a few die-hard right-wing yahoos who will vote no for those reasons, the country has evolved substantially and I really don’t see this as an issue. It’s perhaps not safe to hold Massachusetts up as proving how the American people at large will vote (after all, this is the only state McGovern won) but Massachusetts has been at the forefront of much of what is positive change in American thought and a precursor for political change (after all, this is the only state that voted against Nixon – same election as McGovern!).
Cheerz ... Bwana
________________________________________________
