I've corresponded with a few friends in other countries about the U.S. Presidential elections for 2008, and thought I'd share a few thoughts here since this is a low news time for philosophy. (And, no, I am not going to resume political blogging as a matter of course--it really was too time-consuming, and it attracted too many right-wing whack jobs to the blog and my in-box!) So here's my opinionated, and moderately informed, take:
The good news for humanity, of course, is that the Republicans are in bad shape, and not only because the war criminal and incompetent George Bush has alienated even many Republicans. The leading contenders for the Republican nomination at the moment are a divorced social liberal from New York City, Rudy Giuliani, and a Mormon, Mitt Romney--both of whom will scare off the regular Protestant extremists the Republicans depend upon, though for different reasons--and a Baptist preacher, Mike Huckabee, who is so out of his depth it would be funny if the fate of the world didn't depend upon it. The first two are committed authoritarians, the last is such a seemingly congenial reactionary bozo it's hard to know what to make of him. But the key fact about American elections is that they are winner-take-all affairs, which means it will be the "independents"--those benighted souls who think they stand above sectarian disputes because they can't tell the difference between night and day--who will decide matters.
The "independents" won't vote for someone who is too clearly identified with one wing of the Republican or Democratic parties: religious zealots like Huckabee and Romney are in trouble then, but so too is Hillary Clinton, who comes with heavy baggage given her last name (and remember that Bill--who, of course, looks like a saint by comparison to his successor--barely won a majority of the popular vote in 1996). If the Republicans nominate John McCain (who has managed to conceal his far right credentials fairly well thanks to our suppine press in America) or if the Democrats nominate Hillary Clinton, then this may really be a close race, since independents are more likely to gravitate to McCain and defect from Clinton. But otherwise, I am hopeful we will see a repeat of 2006, when the party of the imprudently greedy, the war-mongers and the religious zealots was trounced.
The best bet for the Democrats is obviously John Edwards, who polls better against all the likely Republican candidates than any of the other Democratic contenders--no doubt because he pulls in enough of the "independent" voters. (He's also a real Southerner, and it has to be observed that the only Democrats to be elected President in the last forty years have been Southerners.) Hillary Clinton suffers from being a Clinton, as well as having one of the most unappealing public personae of a national politician in recent memory. Dick Cheney is creepier and scarier, to be sure, but "fake" is the only word that captures the impression Ms. Clinton makes every time she opens her mouth.
Barack Obama's public positions tend to be a bit embarrassing, but I am told by some of my future colleagues who know him that he is more liberal than he lets on, and that he is aiming, on purpose, for the "mushy middle" of the American polity. Obama's greatest liability should be obvious: he's not white, and since de jure apartheid only ended in American forty years ago or so, there must still be 20% of the electorate that is consciously or subconciously racist, or grew up in a racist household, and will be mobilized against the mere prospect of a non-white President. (Some of those people would likely be voting Republican anyway, but certainly not all.) And once the Republicans are done with Barack Osama gaffes and smears, they'll lock up the racist (and racially uneasy) vote by calling attention to the Church to which Senator Obama belongs in Chicago. (We'll know soon enough whether these concerns about racism are well-founded, starting with the Iowa caucuses this week. Polls, I suspect, are overstating Obama's support, because of the well-known phenomenon that those responding do not want to to seem racist when answering questions.) I am optimistic that Obama would be a more progressive President than Hillary Clinton (notwithstanding some of his mealy-mouthed rhetoric), but Edwards has taken the most genuinely progressive positions to date and is also surely more electable than either of them.
All that being said, the war criminals currently in Washington have performed so badly, in so many ways, that no matter who the Democrats nominate, they may still be able to prevail. Of course, a lot can happen in the next ten months that may change that assessment.
UPDATE JANUARY 3: The good news: Senator Obama trounced the Democrat's weakest and least progressive contender, Senator Clinton, in the Iowa caucuses this evening, by a margin of 38% to 29%. The sad news: Senator Edwards, with 30% of the vote, is finished; given his lack of funds, and his huge investment in Iowa, he needed a resounding victory here to remain a serious contender. That Senator Obama did so well is also a hopeful sign that the worry about latent racism will not be as much a factor as I had feared; Iowa has a negligible minority population, so for Senator Obama to have prevailed there by such a margin is an encouraging sign. On the other hand, Iowa is not part of the "old South," and does not have the same history of racism as many states yet to come. I certainly hope Senator Obama prevails in the remaining primaries, and in November, and that he proves to be as progressive as some of my friends assure me he actually is.
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