American presidential politics
By Shashi Tharoor
Weekly Column "Shashi on Sunday" in "The Times of India"
July 08, 2007

With the Fourth of July, the USA's national holiday, just gone by, it seems a good time to extend our look at American presidential politics. This is the first US Presidential election since 1952 in which neither side is putting forward a sitting president or vice-president, which makes it an unusually open contest. And though the smart money is on the electorate choosing a Democrat in 2008 after eight years of an increasingly unpopular Bush presidency, nothing can be taken for granted. Americans tend to vote for individuals rather than parties: a lot depends on who exactly each party puts forward as its nominee for the top job.

In the interests of full disclosure, as they like to say in Washington, i should admit that i know some of the candidates personally. I've met and spoken with four of the eight Democrats and three of the 10 Republicans, but (though a couple of them call me by my first name) i wouldn't describe any of them as a friend. So it's without any personal bias that i say it's a hugely impressive roster of contenders, and the chances are good that whoever the US elects in 2008 will be well worthy of the office.

The polls point to a clear frontrunner on the Democratic side: Senator Hillary Clinton of New York. The former First Lady is smart, highly knowledgeable, and impressively organised. She has raised the most money, assembled a capable staff and dominated each of the debates so far. Her track record in her six years in the Senate has also strengthened her credentials for office: she has worked effectively with colleagues on both sides of the aisle, shown leadership on national security questions (a presumed area of weakness for a female candidate that she overcame by seeking a place on the Senate Armed Services Committee and travelling to places like Iraq and Afghanistan), and delivered tangible results for her home state. And she has the inestimable advantage of having in her corner the most astute and charismatic politician in America, her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

But Hillary has disadvantages too. She may have the highest numbers in the polls, but she also scores the highest negatives. Her years in the White House made her a polarising figure: she acquired her husband's enemies and developed a few of her own. Where some people see a poised, pulled-together and articulate politician, others see an Ice Maiden, one who comes across as too cold and calculating for their comfort. She voted for the Iraq War resolution that authorised President Bush to launch what has become America's most disastrous international misadventure since Vietnam. And then there's her gender: whereas we in India are used to powerful women politicians, there are no Mother Goddesses in American culture. Some men still remain deeply suspicious of the prospect of entrusting power to a woman, and some women, for reasons only psychologists can explain, say they would vote for anyone rather than Hillary. The Republicans are said to relish the prospect of coming up against her in 2008 — and indeed, "head-to-head" polls show her losing in a hypothetical race against either former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani or Arizona Senator John McCain (though she would beat the other Republicans).

The one Democrat who, in these same polls, beats any possible Republican candidate is Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Obama is an extraordinary candidate by any description: he's black, in a country where memories of segregation and discrimination still run deep; he has been a national figure for just two years, having been elected to the Senate only in 2004; he is the son of a Kenyan Muslim, which explains his unusual name (made worse by the fact that his middle name is Husain). Ordinarily, each of these three facts would have been enough to prevent him having a realistic shot at the nomination. But there's nothing ordinary about Barack Obama.

He electrified the nation with a speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, which instantly made him a star in the party; he has the kind of charisma that lights up a room as soon as he walks into it; and he opposed the Iraq war from the start, which puts him on the right side of an issue that may be a litmus test for many Democratic voters. He's also highly intelligent, with a Harvard Law degree, a brilliant speaker and a figure of boyish charm who reminds many (including JFK's speechwriter Ted Sorensen) of the legendary President Kennedy. And he's raised almost as much money as Hillary; though he still trails her in the polls of likely primary voters, he has the resources to catch up. In the end, his lack of experience and the handicap of belonging to a 'visible minority' could still tell against him, but his entry into the race has brought an invigorating whiff of fresh air into the process.

The third major Democrat in the fray is former Senator John Edwards, the party's vice-presidential nominee last time around. Edwards has reinvented himself as a left-of-centre populist, decrying the poverty in parts of America and recan-ting his earlier support for the Iraq War. He hails from the South, a region the Democrats need to make serious inroads into if they are to win a national election, and he is a polished and attractive figure (though some worry that he is too attractive: news of his $400 haircuts reminded Americans of the derisive nickname 'the Breck Girl', implying that Edwards belongs in a shampoo commercial rather than the Oval Office). If he scores well in the early primaries, however, he could emerge as the white male alternative to either Hillary or Obama: it's too early to discount him just yet.

There are a number of hugely impressive figures amongst the also-rans, notably Delaware Senator Joe Biden, the chairman of the foreign relations committee and a true friend of India, and New Mexico governor Bill Rich-ardson, a former ambassador to the UN with a real talent for diplomacy. But neither scores more than 4% in the polls and, barring the unexpected, may find it difficult to raise enough money to sustain competitive candidacies as the primary elections dawn.

We'll take a break and return to the Republicans later.