With the Iowa caucus barely a fortnight away, the current front-runners in this year’s US presidential campaigns make an unlikely pair. Six months ago some bookmakers were offering odds of 50 to 1 and 60 to 1 against Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee obtaining their parties’ nominations. At the time Senator Clinton was a shoo-in for the Democrats and either Romney, Giuliani, McCain or Thompson was expected to carry the GOP. Other candidates were meant to play supporting roles, to add a little tension – nothing more. The ranks of American punditry largely agreed that this election was too momentous for either side to pick a candidate who lacked experience and name-recognition; both parties would go for someone ‘electable’. Voters were not ready to take chances with a newcomer.
Apparently, they are now. Part of the reason is a general frustration with ‘politics as usual’. The Bush years have been a chastening example of what experienced politicians can do when given free rein, and the tepid Democratic response to many of the ensuing crises has shown how ineffective Washington can be at solving problems it alone has created. The party faithful in both camps have become understandably wary of old faces who promise new leadership. This has had the unusual effect of turning the question of electability on its head. Instead of enhancing a candidate’s stature, experience in national politics has often undermined public trust in their judgement and competence. Senator Clinton’s ambiguous stance on Iraq, for example, has slowly become an albatross for her campaign, especially since she refuses to concede that it was wrong to approve an invasion before she had read all the evidence that was then available. Likewise, Giuliani’s hopes that his time as mayor of New York, and his much-trumpeted leadership after the September 11 attacks would provide a strong platform have faded as revisionist accounts of both periods have taken hold in the mainstream media. Obama and Huckabee, by contrast, have started to sound more credible as agents of change, precisely because their opponents have gone to such lengths to paint them as outsiders.
Karl Rove, the political puppeteer behind George W. Bush’s unlikely presidencies, taught his minions a counterintuitive strategy: attack perceived strengths. If your political nemesis was a war hero, find veterans who thought otherwise, and give them publicity; if you were up against a moralist, discover or invent stories that hinted at a sordid private life; if your opponent had a firm grasp of details and facts, focus on every mistake he had ever made until he began to look like a liar. The approach worked so well partly because it relied on the growing influence of gossip journalism in American culture. A weekly diet of celebrity scandal in the ubiquitous gutter press had primed the electorate to believe that politicians were inherently in bad faith. If, however, ‘virtue is but vice disguised’, then personal candour becomes an unexpected asset. In the new dispensation, most sins are tolerable. Hypocrisy isn’t. Expose that in your rivals and public opinion will do the rest. Earlier than most, Rove realised that ‘truth’ was for amateurs, pros worried about the ‘master-narrative’.
Fortuitously, this has helped both Huckabee and Obama, but not in ways Rove could have intended. No profile of the former Arkansas governor fails to mention his struggles with obesity – a problem that afflicts millions of Americans but strangely few politicians. Almost everyone knows about his dramatic weight loss (50 kg) in a few months, and his disarming description of himself as a “recovering foodaholic”. Similarly, much of the power of Obama’s bestselling memoir came from its unflinching descriptions of his angry adolescence. By admitting to youthful experiments with drugs and to confusion over his racial identity, Obama cleverly pre-empted many of the attacks that would otherwise have been levelled against him. Also, as James Traub of the New York Times has observed, the book left behind an impression of ‘a pensive, complicated, highly imperfect person with a real voice’.
In person, both men are obviously more at ease with themselves than candidates who have been more carefully groomed. This makes them doubly attractive in an age in which so much energy goes into burnishing the candidate’s public persona. (In the last election one of the most memorable examples of this came when, president Bush ignored a question about his political mistakes – as though a refusal to admit any would mean that he had in fact made none.) Romney and Giuliani, Clinton and Edwards – expert performers in the public eye but far less convincing as regular people – have been far more guarded throughout their campaigns, and consequently less convincing as ‘real people’. It is an oversight they may all regret.
The Democrats have few strong feelings about Huckabee, but Republican strategists fear Obama more than they dare say. If he can get past Mrs Clinton – and that remains an open question – he has qualities that could easily wrongfoot the extreme right’s traditional attacks. Their attempts to brand him (untruthfully) as a Muslim have fallen flat, as have provocations to draw him into the race and culture wars which have animated so many modern campaigns. Hillary is grist to the mill, but Obama has proved frustratingly difficult to wound. All year long the GOP has assumed they will have their day against Hillary. An Obama victory would seriously upset their calculations.
The Iowa caucus is really about building momentum. If Obama wins there, and wins again in New Hampshire he will effectively have beaten Mrs Clinton. For thirty years, nobody who won both has failed to secure the nomination. By itself that is one good reason why, whatever the results, the upcoming caucus is likely to provide some of the most riveting political theatre in years.
