All eyes on the Super Tuesday prize
The presidential race in the United States has quickly boiled down to a couple of candidates for each party: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats, and John McCain and Mitt Romney for the Republicans. For the Republicans it would seem that the outcome is a foregone conclusion, with McCain running with far greater momentum with Romney through recent state ballots. Contrastingly, I don’t think any of us watching is too keen to put their neck out in relation to predicting the Democratic nomination. From all reports, the margins are tight, and recent results which have run massively contrary to prior polling (e.g. New Hampshire) make one pretty sceptical of market research just at the moment.
For my money’s worth (and I have an extremely dubious track record on such matters), I am tipping Hillary Clinton to do better out of Super Tuesday for the Democrats than Obama. My preferred choice is of course the latter, but I just have a funny feeling that while Obama is pulling in young voters left, right and centre, he is not doing quite so well with the older, establishment set within the Democratic party. The recent comparisons of Obama to JFK and his endorsement by Teddy Kennedy seem at first glance to be real coups for the Obama campaign, but we mustn’t forget that Kennedy no longer represents what we might call the mainstream Democratic establishment. One imagines that a decent number of hard-nosed Democrat voters would have sensed alarm bells going off when Kennedy, with his controversial take on modern politics and his high profile, backed Obama, who has less political experience and less global political connections than his counterpart. The Obama campaign team have attempted to turn this inexperience into a positive by taking an anti-establishment, anti-insider approach to the media markets, but this may ultimately prove hurtful to the campaign, as it appeared to be in some respects for John Edwards who was even more aggressive on this line.
I guess we’ll find out one way or another soon enough. If we do eventually end up with a third Clinton Administration – my one frivolous hope is that Clinton hires Obama and his team for writing and delivering her speeches. If we are talking about the craft of language and the ability to inspire people with words, I don’t think there is any doubt that Obama knocks Clinton, her husband, and the entire bevy of Republican candidates right out of the park.
Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
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February 5th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Every morning for the past two weeks my breakfast has been accompanied by sound-bytes from the Presidential racers and their patrons. Cheering crowds and hyperbolic proclamations about the candidates and their great nation. For a while I was hoping that it would go Obama’s way. Now I just wish it would go away. I’ll be happy when Super Tuesday is over.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Well you can dismiss Teddy’s nod, fine. Can you dismiss Caroline’s?
Obama is Rudd Mk II, so on that basis likely to get up. However if the US is to finally get decent medical cover, I would’ve went with John Edwards but he’s out, so the next best healthcare plan is Hillary Clinton.
With perhaps the exception of federalism, the lack of universal healthcare in the US like most other anglophone nations suggests its not a very progressive nation. Even the arguments I’ve read against it from the US don’t hold water.
Listening to average Americans talk they don’t like Hillary because she’s a flip flopper, however you could say the exact same thing about McCain, yet you never hear that levelled against him.
February 5th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Damian - it’s an awfully long and drawn out process isn’t it? Certainly makes our electoral processes look compact by comparison.
Vee, well, I don’t know. I don’t think Rudd has the rhetorical gifts of Obama - and in fact the experience that Rudd has in public service implies he is more of the Clinton mold than Obama. The nearest point of comparison I can think of for Obama in Australian politics would probably have to be one Mr. Latham, but I don’t think it’s much of a comparison. They are/were both young firebrands offering a break from the past, but that’s just about where the comparison begins and ends.
I think a lot of Americans don’t like Hillary because of her association with her husband, and a lot of conservative folk probably feel she is the sort of the cliched “modern woman” that threatens the fabric of the traditional society as they know it. Perhaps its ageist to say so, but I honestly think McCain, in this modern 24×7 media age, is too old to provide the energy needed for public office. Foreign policy wise he also seems to be offering further disaster rather than a change in direction.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I can’t fault your reasoning on McCain, I can probably accept your theory on Hillary, however Obama I am sketchy on.
I associate him with Rudd because he’s basically agreeing with everything the Republicans are saying whilst being a Democrat. You then must ponder the question, is he a Democrat in name only?
As for his oratorical skills I’m not easily persuaded by the group-think that has invaded other cliques.
As it is, Super Tuesday is over - McCain is still the clear GOP winner and it remains tight between Hillary and Obama.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Is he really agreeing with everything the Republicans are saying? He certainly has quite a stridently different position on Iraq. I also think that he would be considerably less hawkish than any of the Republican candidates on foreign policy. He is of course also pro-choice (a big faultline between the Democrat and Republican field), and has more liberal thoughts on immigration policy than all the Republicans.
If you haven’t already I’d recommend watching a couple of his speeches from YouTube. His Iowa victory speech was probably the most recent one I’ve seen and thought soared in parts.
It will be interesting to see if the seemingly persistent question marks around who the Democrat candidate will play into the hands of McCain as the year wears on.