“Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear,” says Alex Spillius on his Daily Telegraph blog. “We don’t learn do we?” Almost every major poll had Barack Obama beating Hillary Clinton by 10 percentage points or more on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, and then he lost by one.
There wasn’t a pundit around who hadn’t jumped on Obama’s bandwagon by Tuesday, agrees Gerard Baker in The Times. The theory now is that it was Mrs Clinton’s “tearful little moment” on the trail on Monday, but who knows?
The race has proved Obama can “reach across party lines to independents and even Republicans”; but if Clinton can fight back in the big primary states with a massive turnout of more traditional Democratic voters, she will “presumably prevail”.
Clinton’s win will give her a much-needed boost in the run up to ‘Super Duper Tuesday’ (5 February), when 20 states cast their vote for the nomination, following her defeat in the Iowa caucus last week. Obama’s success in Iowa wasn’t such a surprise, says David Aaronovitch in The Times. Iowa has never elected a woman in a congressional or gubernatorial election. Obama’s other great advantage is that no one knows what he is, so he can be “loaded with just about any expectation or hope”. He’s seen as a changer, a healer, a radical.
Clinton’s disadvantage is that we understand exactly what she is. In America, voters demand authenticity but rarely reward it at election time. That’s a shame, because “imperfect as she is”, Clinton is “super-competent and super-serious about the presidency”. If she were a man, “there would be no question about who should be nominated”.
Obama lacks experience and his grasp of policy detail is inferior to his rivals, says Spillius, but Americans tend to vote with their hearts and are fast falling for his charms after the “dark Bush years of war and middle-class economic struggle”. It is clear that the November election will occur against a background of economic distress, says Paul Krugman in The New York Times, which ought to be good news for candidates running on a platform of change.
Unemployment rose to 5% in December and the repercussions of the housing crisis are spreading. The dominance of economic issues is one of the “least-expected features” of the election campaign, says Gerard Baker in The Times. Six months ago, when the Iraq war was going badly and fear about Iran’s nuclear programme loomed large, everyone expected the election to be about foreign policy.
Now, the biggest issues have been “bread-and-butter economic matter” – immigration, the mortgage crisis, rising energy costs, financial security, the environment and healthcare, which now ranks second or third amongst voters as a concern.
Among Republicans, recent political events, corruption and incompetence among Republicans in Congress have acted as a “centrifugal force”, splintering the coalition. The Republican race has come down to a competition among voting blocs, from evangelical Christians to the economic conservatives, says Peter Canellos in The Boston Globe. This battle could ultimately determine its very meaning as a political movement.
The front-runners’ economic policies
Republicans
John McCain: The 71-year-old Vietnam war hero, who has won the first Republican primary in New Hampshire, is the “quintessential national security conservative“, says Gerard Baker in The Times. He has alienated many conservatives with a reputation for being soft on illegal immigrants, while his maverick reputation also “suggests deeply anti-conservative instincts“. Nonetheless, McCain pledges to make Bush’s tax cuts permanent and argues against tax rises for entrepreneurs. He sums himself up as “a pro-life, small-government, anti-spending, foreign-policy-hawk conservative”.
Mike Huckabee: A Baptist minister, Huckabee served as governor of Arkansas for more than a decade, and has focused on domestic issues. He is hostile to abortion, illegal immigrants, and gay couples, but “just as angry” at big companies and free trade. He understands that “economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being“ and talks about this in a way that no one else has, says David Brooks in the International Herald Tribune.
Democrats
Hillary Clinton: She is seen as “heir presumptive” to her husband’s centrist economic policies, says Paul Krugman in The New York Times. She advocates repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, wants to lower taxes for middle-class families and make healthcare affordable to every American, subsidising insurance for the poor with tax credits. But one legacy of her husband she “is careful not to claim credit for” is the North American Free Trade Agreement, says Andrew Ward in the FT, amid “mounting public concern about the impact of globalisation on US workers“.
Barack Obama: His views on tax cuts and healthcare are similar to Clinton’s. He sponsored the 2007 Patriot Employer Act, giving tax credits to firms that increase their employment in the US relative to foreign countries, but has “eschewed protectionism and rejected anti-immigration policies”, says David Aaronovitch in The Times. He aims to lead on climate change and cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, says Spillius in The Daily Telegraph.