Post by Flash on May 20, 2008 12:07:03 GMT -5
lf this long US Democratic primary campaign were opera we'd be deep into the final act by now.
The doomed soprano would be working her way up the emotional rungs of her last aria. A few feet across the stage would lie the knife fated to deliver her from her plight. The tragic denouement for the fallen heroine is as predictable as it is moving.
Of course, this is the indefatigable Clintons we're talking about, who have never been known to follow anyone else's libretto, so you can't quite be sure how precisely the story will end.
If Hillary Clinton were Madame Butterfly, she'd be out there till the last, quibbling that she could still persuade enough super-delegates that Pinkerton really would be coming back. In the Clinton version of I Pagliacci, Canio's conclusive declaration that “La commedia è finita” would be greeted with a shrill, defiant response from somewhere in the gods: “No it's not. Not until we've counted the delegates from Michigan and Florida!”
And yet even the Clintons must know now, whatever they say in public, that the drama is done. Barack Obama, who was only just out of law school when their presidential dynasty began 16 years ago, has brought it crashing to a premature end.
Her hefty defeat in North Carolina on Tuesday, accompanied by a narrow victory in Indiana, has closed off any last remaining possibility that she can win the Democratic nomination. She trails Mr Obama by so many delegates and by so much in the popular vote that only a collapse by him in the few remaining primaries and an act of political larceny by her in the messy procedural discussions that will follow could deny him the nomination.
And so the scenery changes and the stage is set for a general election campaign, somewhat shorter than most had expected, but still, at more than five months, quite long enough for most voters.
It should be quite a show. For starters, it features a number of historic firsts. Everyone knows by now that Senator Obama would be the first black president. But John McCain will also have a singularity by dint of his birth - the first man born outside the United States to become president (since being native-born American is a condition of eligibility for the presidency, Senator McCain only qualifies by virtue of the fact that when he was born there, the Panama Canal Zone was a US territory).
It will also be the first election to be fought between two sitting members of the US Senate; one of them will be the first senator to become president since John Kennedy and only the second in the nation's history.
Mr McCain is bidding to be the oldest man ever to be elected president for the first time; Mr Obama one of the youngest: the first truly intergenerational presidential campaign - at 25 years the widest age difference between the two main parties' candidates.
The identity of the two candidates also speaks to a significant geographic shift in the centre of gravity of American politics. It will be the first election since 1984 in which neither candidate has roots in, or a strong connection with, the South.
Not much of this will matter in voters' minds, however. Instead, the contest is likely to be determined by what they make of two bigger questions, what political scientists might call meta-issues, that will underpin almost everything that happens between now and November 4.
The first is the classic tension in a presidential race between politics and personality. The politics of 2008 clearly favour the Democratic nominee. The country is ready for change, unhappy with economic stagnation, desperate for an end to the war in Iraq. In the congressional elections that will accompany the presidential one, it is already clear that the Republicans could be headed for a defeat of historic proportions.
But the presidential contest is as much about the characters of the candidates as it is about the politics, and that is why Mr McCain has a chance. Voters will have to weigh the general haziness of Mr Obama's background, his odd connections, perhaps for some his race, certainly his inexperience, against Mr McCain's heroic life story, his age and his famously short temper.
The other crucial meta-theme is the sudden and unexpected decline of partisanship. For the past decade American politics has been deeply polarised. The middle ground shrank to a mere sliver of no man's land across which the two parties fired their partisan ammunition. George Bush won two elections in large part by mobilising his core Republican base better than his Democratic opponents managed theirs.
This year, in a complete reversal, the two parties will be fighting for a vastly expanded swing vote. They have selected two candidates almost uniquely well placed to appeal beyond their party. Mr McCain is healthily despised by a good section of the Republican base, and won his party's nomination only because of a broad appeal to independents and Democrats. With his appealing message of change Mr Obama has built his coalition, from an African-American and well-educated liberal core, out to moderates and even Republicans. But he has repeatedly failed to win substantial numbers of the party's traditional base - the white, unionised working class.
Of course, both candidates will do their best to frame the other as an extremist. Mr Obama will insist that Mr McCain is running for President Bush's third term. Mr McCain will point to Mr Obama's left-wing voting record in the US Senate.
But America's political direction will be decided in a vast middle ground of voters unsure, for the first time in years, that either party has all the answers.
The doomed soprano would be working her way up the emotional rungs of her last aria. A few feet across the stage would lie the knife fated to deliver her from her plight. The tragic denouement for the fallen heroine is as predictable as it is moving.
Of course, this is the indefatigable Clintons we're talking about, who have never been known to follow anyone else's libretto, so you can't quite be sure how precisely the story will end.
If Hillary Clinton were Madame Butterfly, she'd be out there till the last, quibbling that she could still persuade enough super-delegates that Pinkerton really would be coming back. In the Clinton version of I Pagliacci, Canio's conclusive declaration that “La commedia è finita” would be greeted with a shrill, defiant response from somewhere in the gods: “No it's not. Not until we've counted the delegates from Michigan and Florida!”
And yet even the Clintons must know now, whatever they say in public, that the drama is done. Barack Obama, who was only just out of law school when their presidential dynasty began 16 years ago, has brought it crashing to a premature end.
Her hefty defeat in North Carolina on Tuesday, accompanied by a narrow victory in Indiana, has closed off any last remaining possibility that she can win the Democratic nomination. She trails Mr Obama by so many delegates and by so much in the popular vote that only a collapse by him in the few remaining primaries and an act of political larceny by her in the messy procedural discussions that will follow could deny him the nomination.
And so the scenery changes and the stage is set for a general election campaign, somewhat shorter than most had expected, but still, at more than five months, quite long enough for most voters.
It should be quite a show. For starters, it features a number of historic firsts. Everyone knows by now that Senator Obama would be the first black president. But John McCain will also have a singularity by dint of his birth - the first man born outside the United States to become president (since being native-born American is a condition of eligibility for the presidency, Senator McCain only qualifies by virtue of the fact that when he was born there, the Panama Canal Zone was a US territory).
It will also be the first election to be fought between two sitting members of the US Senate; one of them will be the first senator to become president since John Kennedy and only the second in the nation's history.
Mr McCain is bidding to be the oldest man ever to be elected president for the first time; Mr Obama one of the youngest: the first truly intergenerational presidential campaign - at 25 years the widest age difference between the two main parties' candidates.
The identity of the two candidates also speaks to a significant geographic shift in the centre of gravity of American politics. It will be the first election since 1984 in which neither candidate has roots in, or a strong connection with, the South.
Not much of this will matter in voters' minds, however. Instead, the contest is likely to be determined by what they make of two bigger questions, what political scientists might call meta-issues, that will underpin almost everything that happens between now and November 4.
The first is the classic tension in a presidential race between politics and personality. The politics of 2008 clearly favour the Democratic nominee. The country is ready for change, unhappy with economic stagnation, desperate for an end to the war in Iraq. In the congressional elections that will accompany the presidential one, it is already clear that the Republicans could be headed for a defeat of historic proportions.
But the presidential contest is as much about the characters of the candidates as it is about the politics, and that is why Mr McCain has a chance. Voters will have to weigh the general haziness of Mr Obama's background, his odd connections, perhaps for some his race, certainly his inexperience, against Mr McCain's heroic life story, his age and his famously short temper.
The other crucial meta-theme is the sudden and unexpected decline of partisanship. For the past decade American politics has been deeply polarised. The middle ground shrank to a mere sliver of no man's land across which the two parties fired their partisan ammunition. George Bush won two elections in large part by mobilising his core Republican base better than his Democratic opponents managed theirs.
This year, in a complete reversal, the two parties will be fighting for a vastly expanded swing vote. They have selected two candidates almost uniquely well placed to appeal beyond their party. Mr McCain is healthily despised by a good section of the Republican base, and won his party's nomination only because of a broad appeal to independents and Democrats. With his appealing message of change Mr Obama has built his coalition, from an African-American and well-educated liberal core, out to moderates and even Republicans. But he has repeatedly failed to win substantial numbers of the party's traditional base - the white, unionised working class.
Of course, both candidates will do their best to frame the other as an extremist. Mr Obama will insist that Mr McCain is running for President Bush's third term. Mr McCain will point to Mr Obama's left-wing voting record in the US Senate.
But America's political direction will be decided in a vast middle ground of voters unsure, for the first time in years, that either party has all the answers.