10 Feb 2008 |
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The Barack Obama Phenomenon FOR obvious reasons, American democracy is of great interest to other nations and peoples of the world. Whoever leads America is not just President of the United States; with the present configuration of geo-politics, he is also invariably the President of a sizeable segment of the world. And so, commentators and analysts all over have been busy monitoring the American Presidential primaries ahead of the 2008 Presidential polls later this year. We have seen how the voter is the king in American politics and how issues rather than panga (which is a major tool in Kenyan politics) and Godfathers and the incumbency factor (the main determinants of democracy in Nigeria) drive the electorate to make an informed choice. But Super Tuesday this week, with the primaries taking place in 24 American states proved to be a critical moment in America's decision-making process. With the completion of the exercise neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had a clear candidate for the 2008 elections, but by Friday, with Mitt Romney bowing out of the Republican race, and Mike Huckabee still struggling, it was well established that the Republican party now has Senator John McCain, 71, as its main candidate. He won nine states, and about half of the proportional representational number of delegates on Super Tuesday. The Democratic race is a bit more complex. Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton are now neck to neck in the race, with the former cancelling a thirty per cent deficit to post the most impressive outing ever by any coloured person seeking the US Presidential position. Super Tuesday ended in a stalemate for both Obama and Clinton, although Obama won the popular vote in 13 states and Clinton in eight states and American Samoa. Obama has shown great capacity and strength with a campaign movement that is sweeping through the United States like a tornado. Mrs Clinton, may have won some of the super delegates states including New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and California, but it is Obama that is the big issue not just in the Democratic Party but in American politics at the moment, with his impressive wins in middle America and such places as Missouri, Connecticut, Illinois, Idaho, Minnesota and South Carolina. The race in the Democratic party is so tight, so difficult to call, that political analysts are already calling for an Obama-Clinton ticket, or a Clinton-Obama ticket as the surest way to prevent an easy victory for the Republicans. But the two democratic front-runners are not too keen about sharing the platform with each other. Overall as at Friday, Clinton had a total of 1, 055 delegates, to Obama's 998. A total of 2, 025 delegates is required for a candidate to secure the Democratic nomination. But the issue about Barack Obama is not simply a matter of numbers but what the most exciting event, now effectively established as the Barack Obama phenomenon represents. Obama is the fifth African-American Senator in American history and currently, the only black man in the US Senate. His campaign for the US Presidency is exploding all known stereotypes about the place of the black man in the United States. He has won the primaries even in traditional white strongholds. His support base cuts across all races and constituencies. Obama preaches a message of renewal and change that resonates across America. His movement is real, it is now proving rather unstoppable. Everyday, the Obama machine keeps moving. He has been described as the kind of President that America needs at this point in its history to put years of division and discord behind it, and to bring the country closer to a new day of fresh possibilities. In January alone, he received a total of $32 million from 1170, 000 people who chose to support him, and in six months over 700, 000 persons have contributed to his campaign - not political lobbyists, not American corporate establishment, but ordinary people across all races. He has also received celebrity endorsements which have given his campaign an edge of seriousness, from Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, Susan Eisenhower to Oprah. Celebrity endorsement is about power and publicity. Obama himself has become something of a rock star, drawing large crowds in every city , sometimes running into 10, 000s and 20, 000s. "...It is the strength and beauty of America that the son of an African man with a "funny sounding" name, born under British Colonial Rule, can now be a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States". These are Obama's own words, and they probably define the significance of his phenomenon. Obama transcends all existing stereotypes, and explodes all myths: here is a black man rubbing shoulders with White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) and insisting that he too has a right to be President of the United States. He has gone beyond the Democratic caucus to win the support of even Republicans. Women love him, his infectious charisma and enthusiasm is attracting followership among young Americans. This is not the prototypical black man in the United States swaggering from one street to the other, virtually aimlessly, buffeted by the uncertainties of survival. Obama studied in Columbia University and the Harvard Law School, he carries himself with dignity, he is bright and articulate, he has mastered the rhetoric of American exceptionalism, he is a poster boy for an American dream that still works. African observers of the Obama phenomenon are excited. It is assumed that a black man with African roots in the White House will be more sympathetic to African issues. It is indeed exciting to see a black minority figure make a bid for the world's most powerful position, and with the right credentials. But will Obama get there, in spite of his outstanding performance so far as a Presidential hopeful? Will the audacity of hope and change, and those large crowds following him about, translate into voter turn-outs? Obama's strongest challenger for now is Senator Hillary Clinton. And he is definitely giving her a good fight. Mrs Clinton is not attracting as much funding as Obama. In a week when the Obama campaign received a support of about $7 million, Mrs Clinton had to use $5 million of her own money to shore up her campaign finances. There isn't much difference between Obama and Mrs Clinton on the big issues: Iraq, energy, healthcare etc, if there is any sharp difference it is the message that each candidate preaches: Obama talks about change and renewal, about a new U-S-A, Mrs Clinton is talking about experience, a euphemism for Obama's relative lack of experience in politics and management. But Mrs Clinton lacks Obama's momentum. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton goofed in South Carolina trying to defend her.. Nonetheless, no woman before her has put up as much brilliant showing in the pitch for the highest office in American democracy since women the right to vote. She has shown much grit and strength. And it looks like she is prepared for the long haul, even as the race gets tighter with the close results from the February 9 primaries in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington. Whatever may be the current state of the Hillary Clinton campaign, however, I do not think that she should be written off. The Obama phenomenon may appear unstoppable, but it is not bullet-proof. Is America ready for a woman President? Is America ready yet for a black man or a minority as President? The first question may be easier to answer than the second. The puzzle is in an aspect of the American Presidential primaries that everyone is trying to be careful about, but it is really the main issue in relation to the Obama bid: and it is the race question. In America, race matters. I note that Obama's supporters do not like this question to be posted so frontally. They insist that Barrack Obama is running a race that goes beyond race and that the statistics defining his candidature prove this to be so. But I'd rather vote with the skeptics. The point of the Obama phenomenon appears to have been well made and it may soon end up serving its entire purpose. The American Presidency is a position of great power. Through Obama, America may have shown that it is a land of free and equal opportunity. But we are dealing with a conservative society, with many aspects of its life, grossly over-rationalized, and let no one argue that that was in the past. If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, she will be a much easier candidate to sell to America, and a tougher opponent for the Republicans to beat even if the chauvinistic wing of the establishment will seek to stop her for no stronger reason than gender. A Hillary Clinton candidature will be a major boost for the women empowerment cause in the United States and other parts of the world. She has great credentials. And she understands Washington and its inside politics. An Obama candidature will be quite revolutionary, but it will be reduced ultimately to the same question of race. Obama as Presidential candidate of the Democratic Party will be easier to beat: it will amount to handing over the Presidency to the Republicans on a platter of gold. When it comes to the crunch, I join the skeptics in arguing that white America will vote along racial lines. It is possible to argue that race is such a sensitive issue that the opposition in the event of an Obama candidature will find very difficult to explore. Campaign consultants, I hear, will not go so low. I think they will once the Obama candidacy crystallizes. America, in spite of of its outward liberal gestures, is trapped in an age of narcissism and febrile group identity. The ground work for the demolition of the Obama candidature, along the lines of prejudices, is already being done. There has been much talk, for example, about his Muslim connections. Can America afford to have a President whose middle name is Hussein? CNN has been focusing on the Obama Presidency with much intensity but the week of Super Tuesday primaries, it brought Obama's relatives in Kenya into the picture. They looked on screen as if they had been wielding pangas (machetes) in the course of the murderous fight over Kenya's democracy. Nobody showed the Obamas wielding machetes, but the power of media auto-suggestion should not be overlooked. Obama has also been accused of linkages with the Chicago mafia. Someone has spoken of a Republican conspiracy against the Democrats, with Obama as the straw guy. If the Democrats are not careful, the wear and tear of the Obama-Clinton contention is bound to work on the long run in favour of the Republicans. America is perhaps at a difficult moment in deciding on its next President. Incumbent President George Bush has performed so poorly, the message of change and renewal which Obama preaches, resonates far more loudly than anything else. But will all the voters rooting for Obama put their votes eventually behind him and all that he represents or what we are just witnessing now is a bloated balloon of a process, and so much political correctness masquerading as reality? This is the puzzle at the heart of the Obama phenomenon. Whatever the Americans decide in the long run, greater value exists for us, as outsiders, in the lessons that those of us from underdeveloped and developing democracies can learn from the American example. American democracy is by no way perfect, we have seen for example how so terribly expensive it is, with the front-runners spending money in excess of $100 million to run the primaries alone! But are Nigerians noting how party primaries are conducted? It is giving Americans the opportunity to know their candidates; it is also a sifting process, with the candidates who cannot stand the heat being moved out of the race through a process of natural selection. The primaries are indeed providing a much more engaging picture of choice and competition than the one-off voting on election day. In Nigeria, party primaries are a charade. They provide an opportunity for party chieftains, self-appointed Godfathers and their band of thugs to impose candidates on the party and the people. Here, the voter is callously discounted and abused. But see how in America, the candidates are having to go from one constituency to the other to woo the voter, to sell a vision of leadership to the people. President Umaru Yar'Adua became President of Nigeria without many Nigerians knowing what he looked like. Or whatever it was he wanted to do for the nation and its people. In the American Presidential primaries, we have now seen on display not just the power of the media, but the power of the internet as well: a digital democracy is unfolding. Unfortunately here in Nigeria, government is further constricting access to computer technology: it is planning to ban the importation of those second-hand computers which provide many Nigerians their only opportunity to be part of a rapidly expanding digital age.
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