07 January 2016By Amir Taheri
Though it is still early days, if things continue as they are we may get the
least exciting presidential campaign that the United States has offered for
decades.
Having spent 10 days in the US this month, a visitor was unable to notice any
rise in adrenaline on either side of the traditional political divide. Most US
presidential campaigns generated excitement for one or more reasons. The first
being that as a teenage political junkie, I took an interest in the elections
of 1960 that ended up pitting Senator John Kennedy against Vice President
Richard M. Nixon.
Kennedy was an exciting candidate both because of his good looks and his
eloquent speeches. Subsequently, I found out that he owed the latter to his
speech-writers, notably Ted Sorensen. Some of JFK's notable-and-quotable
phrases, such as ''ask not what your country can do for you'' etc. were plainly
intriguing, to say the least. A country is an abstraction while the ''you'' thus
addressed is a reality. Also, I wondered if the senator was inviting his
audience not to submit any demands to ''their country'' but instead get
regimented in its service whatever that meant.
JFK was also interesting because he was the first Catholic to have a
reasonable chance of winning the presidency. Needless to say, Nixon too, was
interesting, though for different reasons. While Kennedy belonged to a wealthy
family, Nixon hailed from a modest middle class background. The fact that he
had already reached the vice presidency was a sign that the much-talked of
''American Dream'' was alive and well. With bipartisan accord on foreign policy
never assured, the campaign focused on domestic issues. However, the center of
interest was the personalities of the two contenders.
Years later I learned that Kennedy owed his victory to a little bit of vote
rigging by Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Senator Lyndon Johnson in Texas.
The next two presidential campaigns were dominated by the war in Indochina,
the civil rights movements at home and the emergence of terrorist groups such
as the Weathermen and the Black Panthers.
The next campaign that led to Jimmy Carter becoming president was interesting
because it indicated a popular rejection of the Washington political elite. It
showed that the phrase ''in the US, anyone can become president'' was no myth;
with Cater, ''anyone'' did actually enter the White House.
The 1979 campaign that led Ronald Reagan to presidency was exciting both
because of the tense international atmosphere, including the seizure of the US
embassy in Tehran by Khomeinist mullahs, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
and the success of Marxist guerrillas in a number of Latin American republics.
That election came at a time when the Soviet bloc seemed poised to win the
Cold War. Thanks to the détente strategy devised by Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger, the Soviets were not only given a free hand in the so-called ''Third
World'' but also benefited from access to global capital markets to secure
resources needed for a massive arms build-up and the sustaining of a moribund
economy. While Kissinger pursued his mirage of a world order based on the 17th
century Peace of Westphalia, the Soviet leaders were scoring points with 19th
century colonial-imperial policies.
Reagan's election was a true page-turner. I would hesitate to endorse the
claim that it was Reagan's policies that led to the fall of the USSR and the
end of the Cold War. The Soviet system was bound to implode as a result of its
inner contradictions and the fact that an ideology that seeks to plan human
behavior is based on nothing but dangerous fantasy. (The best laid plans of
mice and men…) Nevertheless, Reagan helped highlight the Soviet
contradictions, challenge Moscow's fantasies and ultimately accelerate the
inevitable demise of the USSR.
The 1992 campaign was exciting because it was the first three-way race in two
decades and the first that was predominantly concerned with economic issues.
Though Bill Clinton won with just 41 per cent of the votes, his election, a
surprise to many, triggered a generational renewal of the American political
elite at the highest level.
Though boring to the maximum, the 2000 presidential election generated some
excitement as a result of the dispute over the number of votes cast in
Florida. The fact that the losing candidate Vice President Al Gore agreed to
concede the election indicated the solidity of US institutions. At the same
time, Gore was following in the footsteps of Nixon who, though aware of vote
rigging by the Kennedy camp, accepted the results of the 1960 elections.
The 2008 campaign was made exciting by the presence of Barack Obama, the first
Afro-American, and a man with an Islamic background, to represent one of the
two major parties, and, in the end, to win handsomely.
Despite its lackluster starting phase, this year's campaign has some
interesting features. For the first time a woman, Hillary Clinton, is almost
certain to be one of the two finalists. That would also make it the first time
that the wife of a former president reaches the top in a presidential race.
Another first this time is the presence of Senator Bernie Sanders who is the
first major politician to seek the presidency with an avowedly socialistic
platform.
Also interesting this time is the fact that the galaxy of wannabes represents
the rainbow nation that America has become. Apart from women in both camps, we
have an African-American, Dr. Ben Carson, close to the top of the Republican
Party list of hopefuls. That list also includes two senators, Marco Rubio and
Ted Cruz, with Latin American backgrounds, a representative of the old
establishment Governor Jeb Bush, and the businessman and TV personality Donald
J Trump, currently the front-runner.
So far the only excitement created in this campaign is Trump's work,
especially his promises to build a wall alongside the Mexican border, expel 12
million illegal immigrants, and more recently, a plan to prevent all Muslims
from entering the United States until ''we know what is going on''.
According to opinion polls, more than 30 per cent of registered Republican
voters support Trump, even in his most provocative version. That would account
for some 10 per cent of the electorate in general, a good base for building
the coalition needed to win.
Obama won by building a coalition of minorities consisting of Afro-Americans
(12 per cent), Latinos (12 per cent), Jews (2 per cent) Arabs and Muslims (2
per cent) Native Americans (one per cent) and gay and lesbians (2 per cent.)
If that coalition falls apart, Mrs. Clinton will have a hard time winning next
November.
Thus the republicans have a good chance of winning this time provided Trump
does not do a Ross Perot by standing as an independent candidate and taking
his 10 per dent away with him.
Most analysts I talked to in the US last week insisted that Trump had no
chance of winning either as the candidate of the Republicans or as an
independent. However, the beauty of democracy is that the results of an
election cannot be foretold with absolute certainty.
Almost all pundits I talked to insisted that Trump would be the wrong choice.
However, a nation that picked Obama, another inexperienced operator with weird
ideas, and survived, need not fear another amateur with bizarre notions such
as Trump.
In any case democracy includes the right to make the wrong choice.
Amir Taheri was born in Ahvaz, southwest Iran, and educated in Tehran, London
and Paris. He was Executive Editor-in-Chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran
(1972-79). In 1980-84, he was Middle East Editor for the Sunday Times. In
1984-92, he served as member of the Executive Board of the International Press
Institute (IPI). Between 1980 and 2004, he was a contributor to the
International Herald Tribune. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, the
New York Post, the New York Times, the London Times, the French magazine
Politique Internationale, and the German weekly Focus. Between 1989 and 2005, he
was editorial writer for the German daily Die Welt. Taheri has published 11
books, some of which have been translated into 20 languages. He has been a
columnist for Asharq Alawsat since 1987. Taheri's latest book "The Persian
Night" is published by Encounter Books in London and New York.
©
EsinIslam.Com
Add Comments