HILLARY, OBAMA SIGNS OF A CHANGE OF COURSE FOR THE US

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MIAMI, Jan 14 2008 (IPS) - The dynamic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to become the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party is yet another sign of the correction of course now underway in the United States, writes Joaquin Roy, \’\’Jean Monnet\’\’ professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami (jroy@Miami.edu). In this analysis, Roy writes that with its image abroad in tatters, a part of the US electorate, large enough to defeat the Republicans, has decided to opt for change. Both candidacies can also be seen as opportunities to remedy the traditional pattern of who has held the highest office of the most powerful country in the world. Hillary would be the first woman and Barack the first black to serve as president in the two-hundred- plus-year history of the US. Hillary and Obama both want the benefits of being the alternative, \”for change\” candidates in order to erase the impact of the disgraced presidency of Bush, particularly the divisiveness of the country and the destruction of its image abroad. Both are trying to present themselves as \’outsiders\’ opposed to \’the establishment\’. Clinton has a harder time of pulling this off, though Obama can hardly be said to be just a guy from the neighbourhood.

In contrast to their Democratic colleagues (with the partial exception of Bill Richardson, whose mother is Mexican) Clinton and Obama have an extra credential in terms of their potential occupancy of the White House. Hillary would be the first woman and Barack the first black to serve as president in the two-hundred- plus-year history of the US. If either one wins, he or she could be seen as the beneficiary of ”affirmative action”, a policy in place since the 1970s intended to open to women and minorities jobs that American society appeared to have barred to them.

Both candidacies can also be seen as opportunities to remedy the traditional pattern of who has held the highest office of the most powerful country in the world. Much progress has been made since the fight for civil rights in the time of Martin Luther King and the heyday of the feminists, but there are still positions of influence that are apparently denied to black people and women. Electing a woman or a black person president would a great blessing for the country and a way to ease its conscience.

But both candidates have burdens they have to overcome. For Obama naturally, and paradoxically, the charge levelled against him is the inversion of the traditional objection to racial origin. What was previously seen as an irreversible disadvantage, in confused times becomes the opposite: if he becomes president, Obama will be accused of winning the office principally because he is black. Being a junior senator and a lawyer are credentials shared by others who have not had, nor will have, the opportunity of capturing the universal attention he was won. He is, in the lingo of the media, news.

The tribulation that awaits Hillary, and which will likely prove to be a cruel and in ways a dirty process, is the insinuation that she reached this political height only because of her “experience” as the wife of a president — and one who is neither mediocre nor forgettable. Hillary is not a novice; she already has solid record in the Senate. But she will not escape the accusation that she owes both her Senate career and the run for president to her husband. The suspicion of favouritism and dynasticism (both present in American political life) is in the air.

Hillary and Obama both want the benefits of being the alternative, “for change” candidates in order to erase the impact of the disgraced presidency of Bush, particularly the divisiveness of the country and the destruction of its image abroad. Both are trying to present themselves as ‘outsiders’ opposed to ‘the establishment’. Clinton has a harder time of pulling this off, though Obama can hardly be said to be just a guy from the neighbourhood.

In the end, if Hillary and Obama are still tied at the Democratic Convention, with all votes counted, the next step will be to determine whether the nucleus of the party considers it a top priority to win over those who normally vote Republican or who abstain. In a country that, with the exception of the Bush regime, prides itself on not having irreconcilable ideological differences and where the parties are merely electoral coalitions, if the decision is presented as a choice between the centre-right (Hillary) and the centre-left (Obama), the former First Lady has the advantage.

In that case, a candidate for vice president will have to be chosen. Rejected as number one, Hillary will not be content with the honour of being an extra. But this second prize might be acceptable to Obama. Were this the ticket, victory for the Democrats would be assured. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)