27 August 2015
Biding Their Time
by J R Thomas
The front runner is pulling yet further ahead – but with an uncompromising personality, some unfortunate history coming out of the woodwork and a lack of popularity among key parts of the party machine, doubts are starting to be expressed even among loyal party members as to whether the front runner, if chosen, can actually win. Is the candidate just too old, too stuck in the past, to get the voters out on the big day?
No, it’s not the Labour Party worrying about Mr Corbyn; it’s the Democratic Party worrying about Mrs Clinton.
Hilary is riding the crest of a wave in the opinion polls – the ones that test the opinions of loyal Democrat supporters. But she is not doing so well among uncommitted voters when they are asked to choose between her and Mr Trump. This must be the least predicted possibility of the campaign. Who would have guessed not only that the Donald would be a clear front runner among the Republicans for the nomination, but also that he is starting to look a serious contender for the Presidency in 2016? The consensus among informed commentators, especially those whose memories stretch far enough back, is that Mr Trump remains unlikely to be the Grand Old Party’s candidate after the Cleveland Convention in eleven months time. The general view is that he has peaked too soon. His mouth will get him into trouble just once (or one hundred times) too often. And he has a rumbustious past which so far has not been analysed in the media’s usual reputation-crunching style; but when it is, it might not appeal to some of the more traditional Republican voters.
But the back-room politicians of the Democrats are not relying on a weak Republican candidate to keep the Presidency for a third term. Their concern is Mrs Clinton. There are various strands to this nervousness about she who appears to be their obvious winner. She is controversial internally to many Democrat activists and especially in Washington. This is partly because she has not built the alliances crucial to garnering party machine support, but also partly political. She is seen as to the left of the party, not a surprise in itself, but after eight leftish Obama years the party feels that maybe the time has come for a more centrist unifying candidate who can get the House of Representatives and the Senate back in Democrat hands. Obama is personally still popular in the heartlands – although his apparent lack of interest in affairs of state is becoming commented on – but the Republicans’ control of both Houses on Capitol Hill make him a lame duck president. The two American political parties are very broad churches of interests with substantial crossovers in the centre, and the electorate has a tendency to control concentrations of power by voting one way for a President and for a contrary party on the Hill to restrict the President’s freedom of action. The Democrats would like to win everywhere to give them a taste of proper power again. Hilary is thought too controversial to achieve that.
But that is not the only mark against Mrs C’s name. Bill Clinton was a charismatic populist. To see Bill work a room was to see conviction politics in action. He was, and is, a genuinely likeable man, with an interest in people and their problems, a willingness to listen, and an understanding of normal folk’s concerns. His wife has many strengths but lingering over minor and even banal conversations with little people is not one of them. She is a woman in a hurry and has spent her adult life hurrying toward real political power. What she has little time for, oddly, given her husband’s personality and record, is wasting time on what she sees as minor matters. She is a deal maker, a fixer, a woman who has played a tough role throughout her and Bill’s political times, knowing when to cajole, when to threaten, when to charm. She maybe has done too little of the latter and much too much cajoling and threatening. There are a lot of people around who have bruises from dealing with Hilary and have, if not thoughts of revenge, at least doubts about her methodology. Which would not matter too much if they saw her as a sure fire vote winner; but they don’t. And that has already been demonstrated – Bernie Saunders, the Vermont version of Jeremy Corbyn, continues to catch up in the polls and looks like winning in New Hampshire in the first primary next year. There are a lot of reasons why that is not that surprising (he’s from next door, for a start) but it would be a terrible start to Hilary’s coronation.
The great American voting public have their doubts about Hilary too. Some of it is the American suspicion of dynasties and entitlement (though it has admittedly done the Kennedys little harm) which is a problem for both Mrs Clinton and Mr (Jeb) Bush. But in Hilary’s case there is a Lady Macbeth problem too. Not just the power behind the arras thing, either. The pre-presidential Clinton political life seemed to involve rather a lot of murky goings on – well ventilated when Bill began his steady climb from the Governor’s mansion in Arkansas and squarely blamed on his wife. Bill rode those rumours down by a mixture of ignoring it and some aggressive lawyering, but there are already lots of investigative journalists turning over the same stones, and some of what lies underneath may cause Mrs C more trouble. And she has more recent problems. The Clintons are very rich now, and some wonder where all that wealth has come from. And that secret email account (contents now deleted?) through which so much governmental business was sent, continues to erode trust. The people trust Bill, but they have never trusted Hilary; and this sort of thing just confirms those feelings.
And we won’t even touch on Mrs Clinton’s record as Secretary of State, and the apparent physical strain on her that the job caused.
So, not too popular among the party grandees, lacking a common touch, regarded with suspicion by the voters, a mixed record in office, and with a bit of a murky past. It’s enough to make any potential President-Maker look at the alternatives. They don’t have to look far to find one. One is sitting in Washington, in the office of the Vice-President. Joe Biden is a classic old fashioned northern Democrat politician – self-made, personable, an intelligent man, but with a common folksy touch, who has charmed and cultivated his way into the office next door to the most powerful man in the country.
Joe has one big disadvantage – he is 72, a couple of years older than Ronald Reagan when he began his first term of office. But he is fit, relaxed, confident, witty. He looks and sounds presidential –always a help. In fact, he looks rather like Bill Clinton. And the USA does not seem to mind age in its politicians –Hilary is 67 and Donald 69. Biden has known considerable personal tragedy and recovered from it. No suggestion of scandal hangs about him, and he is seeing as hardworking, devoted to family, to his constituents, to his country, and particularly to the disadvantaged. He is also a skilled operator. He initially let it be known that he would not run, but not too firmly. Then friends let it be known that aspects of Mrs Clinton’s record were a little disturbing. Now it is rumoured that Mr Obama has let him know that he would not stand in Joe’s way should he wish to run.
And these rumours have been very well received in the party and in the country. The Clinton campaign has been running at a low level – not much TV exposure, very little advertising, lots of small town meetings. That’s cheap, and it makes Hilary look not too grand. It also mirrors Bernie Saunder’s style (and, you may think, Jeremy Corbyn’s).
So what happens next? Any step up in the Clinton campaign would certainly suggest she is taking the man from the White House very seriously. But the problem for both, and indeed for Bernie, is that it is still six months to the first primary. Hilary remembers that one of her big mistakes in 2008 when battling Mr Obama for the nomination was that she peaked much too soon, laying herself open to attacks on all sides, and letting Mr Obama make himself the challenger, a popular role. Joe won’t declare until he is reasonably certain that he can win the nomination. How long that will take will depend on how much support he is getting in conversations round the country, what the polls say (they are already trending his way) and how Hilary gets through the next few months. It could be a very interesting autumn.
