Dear Editor,
In response to VO Patrick’s letter, ‘The prelude to the end game,’ (SN, 5.6.08), I share the writer’s sentiments regarding the history-making achievement by an African American, Mr Barack Obama, in the long and sometimes tense fight with Mrs Hillary Clinton for the just concluded Democratic race for the nominee in this year’s US presidential race.
But let us be somewhat fair and balanced and recognize that, as Mr Obama went out of his way to point out, Mrs Clinton also turned in a history-making performance as a female contender in a race traditionally dominated by males. Both Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton, therefore, broke glass ceilings and dismantled barriers, thus paving the way for other African Americans and females to easily vie for the US presidency.
However, unlike Mr Obama, who ran a superb campaign without the direct nationwide institutional support of his party, and was even a long-shot underdog fifteen months ago, Mrs Clinton ran a campaign based on an arrogant perception of inevitability and entitlement and ill-advisedly relied more on the nationwide institutional support of her party, which promoted her as the front-runner just waiting for her day of coronation.
Whether these perceptions of inevitability and entitlement have been core reasons for Mrs Clinton’s reluctance to drop out of the race and endorse Mr Obama’s candidacy, is debatable. But while it is possible they are, what is emerging is a sense of denial on Mrs Clinton’s part.
As pressure mounts, especially from prominent Democrats who once supported her campaign, denial will continue to give way to acceptance, and by the start of the new week we will have a better picture of her frame of disappointed mindset.
Various stories have also swirled about the true motive for Mrs Clinton’s run for the presidency, including this disturbing one about promises she and her husband made to big financial donors and friends that would have required a Hillary Clinton administration to make favourable concessions to such donors and friends. A lot, therefore, may have been riding on her winning, and this may explain why she is reluctant to accept she lost to a rookie.
While all of that can be debated ad infinitum, what is indubitable is that she is not a gracious loser. Yes, millions admire her tenacious and resilient fighting spirit, hence her ability to pull in a record 18 million votes and thus cast her as a potential play maker on an Obama-Clinton ticket, but Mr Obama’s supporters and even independent critics and analysts dissected this fighting spirit and see negative factors that should disqualify her from being Mr Obama’s running mate.
For his part, Mr Obama is right to take his time and pick a running mate who will essentially comply with his theme of change.
But Mr Obama, if he gets elected, also has his work cut out trying to turn his theme of change from rhetoric into reality in Washington politics. He definitely will need the Democrats to take majority control of both houses of the US Congress so his proposed policies of change can get passed into law.
For starters, if the DNC’s decision on Thursday to follow Mr Obama’s lead and stop taking money from lobbyists in Washington is a sign of things to come, then a President Obama could well change the way Washington does business by taking the business of Washington away from lobbyists and giving it back to the people via their elected representatives.
Then there are other pressing areas of concern on the domestic and foreign fronts that would require a President Obama to define a whole new path. From what I am gathering, if Mr Obama gets elected, he is going to be a world leader who leads based on consensus. But while consensus leadership has upsides, it can have downsides, especially given there are powerful global forces actively seeking to end America’s world dominance.
If a consensus-minded President Obama is not careful enough handling delicate international negotiations, he could watch America lose its status as lone superpower and major defender of democracy under his presidency. And the last thing he will want is to be accused of being a sell-out!
A President Obama’s greatest challenge, in summation, will be to effect needed changes at home and abroad without giving up too much in the process.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
