Hillary’s last chance?

Poor Hillary Clinton.
While it is tempting to think of her recent illness purely in terms of its likely impact on her presidential prospects, it should be remembered that the Secretary of State faces a very serious medical condition. We all wish her well.
However, Mrs Clinton’s agony will undoubtedly have been compounded by the possibility that the news of her blood clot may well prevent her becoming the first woman president of the USA. Even more annoyingly, she has already had two great opportunities to achieve this in the past…
2004
It’s easy to see why Hillary didn’t run for the presidency in 2004. She had only been elected as a Senator in 2000, after all, and incumbent presidents – even terrible ones like Bush – are rarely defeated when they run for re-election. It made much more sense to hold out until 2008, when the field would be clear. Had I been writing this blog in 2004, I’d probably have urged her to hold out until 2008 too.
Yet in retrospect, 2004 might well have l have been the former First Lady’s best ever chance of winning the presidency for herself. Senator John Kerry who was not, after all, the most inspiring presidential candidate the Democrats have ever produced came within a hair’s breadth of dismounting Bush (Kerry is now, of course, Clinton’s most likely successor as Secretary of State). Bill Clinton too, it should be remembered, seemed to have little chance when he announced his candidacy against a post-Desert Storm President George HW Bush in 1991. A bolder attitude would perhaps have favoured her in 2004.
But then nobody knew about Barack Obama…
2008
Hillary Clinton came tantalisingly close to securing the Democratic nomination in 2008. Yet in truth, this time, she didn’t deserve it. Her campaign shared many of the faults of David Miliband’s campaign for the Labour leadership in 2010: arrogance and assumption that the prize was owed to them by right as well as support for the unpopular Iraq War.
Admittedly, Hillary was not to know just how strong a candidate her opponent Obama was to prove. She stayed in the race long after she should have pulled out, feebly claiming she needed to be on hand in case Obama was assassinated. It was not her finest hour.
2016?
Age does not seem to be the deterrent to high office that it can be in the UK. In the late Seventies and early Eighties, elderly leaders were the norm in Britain. Jim Callaghan was 68 when he stood down as Labour leader in 1980. The resulting leadership contest was between Denis Healey (62) and Michael Foot (67).
All of these men would live into their nineties: Healey is still alive today. Yet Foot’s advanced age was widely seen as a major factor in Labour’s landslide 1983 defeat. Since then, Britain’s leaders have got younger and younger. John Major became the youngest PM of the 20th century in 1990. He was 47. His successor Tony Blair was 43. David Cameron in 2010 was younger still. Today all three party leaders are well under fifty.
In the US, Reagan seemed to set a different precedent. While Foot had long white hair, a walking stick and glasses, Reagan (who was in power at the same time as Foot was Labour leader) had somehow retained his dark hair despite being two years older than Foot. Reagan was the first ever presidential nominee to be over seventy. Since then Bob Dole and John McCain have followed his example. Although, of course, neither won. Mitt Romney was 65.
So Hillary being 69 in 2016 was not seen as a serious obstacle to her running in 2016. And the omens looked better than ever after a successful stint as Obama’s first Secretary Of State.
But the blood clot is more serious. Hopefully, both Mrs Clinton and her presidential prospects will make a speedy recovery.

The Class of 2016

The dust may have only just settled on the 2012 race but already thoughts are turning to 2016. Obama can’t run again due to the two term limit, Romney is unlikely to stand again either. So who’s in contention at this early stage?

Hilary Clinton (Dem)

Secretary of State, former First Lady and near winner of the party nomination in 2008.

For: Certainly, the most famous of any of the possible contenders, she has been a success as secretary of state and any wounds left by the bitter 2008 primary race against Obama now seem to have (largely) healed.

Against: She is getting on in years (she will be 69 in 2016) although seems good for her age. There are also a lot of Clinton-haters still in the US (although most are more obsessed with Obama now) and, oh yes!: the US has still never nominated a woman as presidential candidate for any major party, let alone elected them president. Then again, until 2008, they had never elected a black president either…

Joe Biden (Dem)

Vice President.

For: With the exception of the corrupt (Spiro Agnew), the evil (Dick Cheney), the mortally ill (Nelson Rockefeller) and the stupid (Dan Quayle) every Vice President in the last sixty years has gone on to eventually win the presidential nomination for themselves. Four out of the last ten Veeps have gone onto the presidency too (Nixon, Ford, Johnson, Bush I). Biden performed well in this year’s TV debates.

Against: Age again. Biden will be 74 in 2016 and he has already proven gaffe-prone. His 1988 presidential bid was scuppered when he delivered a speech which turned out to have been plagiarised from one previously delivered by British Opposition leader Neil Kinnock (an unknown figure in the US).

Paul Ryan (Rep)

Wisconsin Rep. Mitt Romney’s running mate.

For: Romney’s confused introduction of Ryan as “the next president of the United States” may yet prove correct.

Against: He could be tainted by defeat. He lied in his convention speech and he and Romney both lost their home states in 2012.

Rick Santorum (Rep)

Former Senator for Pennsylvania.

For: Ran against Romney in 2012. A Catholic who will benefit if the party shifts to the Right. Anti-gay marriage and in denial over climate change.

Against: Just horrible.

Madame President?

When will the United States elect its first woman US president?

It is a strange truth.  Nineteen years after Benazir Bhutto was elected in Pakistan, thirty three years after Margaret Thatcher came to power in the UK and a full forty six years after Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister of India, there has still never been a woman US president.

Bearing in mind, two of these three mentioned above (Gandhi and Bhutto) were subsequently assassinated, perhaps they are not the best example but there are, of course, many others. Cory Aquino in the Philippines, Golda Meir in Israel and Angela Merkel and Julia Gillard both currently Chancellor of Germany and Prime Minister of Australia respectively.

Britons should not be too smug on the subject. As time goes on, Mrs Thatcher’s eleven years in Downing Street look more and more like an historical aberration. Good news some might say. But from an equality viewpoint, it isn’t. A woman prime minister need not be as divisive or as damaging as Thatcher was but we don’t seem to be anywhere near finding this out for sure even after the surge in women MPs since 1997. Nobody looks even close to leading any of the three major parties save perhaps Labour’s Yvette Cooper (or at a stretch, Harriet Harman).

So what about the US? Presidents in the US come to power by two means: as vice presidents who succeed a president to office after they have either died or resigned or (more commonly) through election in their own right.

There have been no women vice presidents so far although two have been picked as running mates by candidates for the two major parties in the past. Geraldine Ferraro was picked as running mate by Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984 but is thought to have had little impact on Mondale’s campaign which was already well on course to suffer a massive 49 state to one defeat to President Ronald Reagan.

Governor Sarah Palin’s selection by Republican candidate Senator John McCain four years ago, in contrast, briefly revived a flagging campaign. Palin’s novelty and relative youth excited the party base. McCain, unlike Mondale, actually had a shot at defeating his opponent. And as a man in his seventies, it was hardly too far-fetched to imagine Palin could soon be president herself.

But the excitement didn’t last. Palin soon emerged as a totally unsuitable candidate, as ignorant as she was gaffe-prone. Despite being a former beauty contest entrant (coincidentally in 1984, the same year as the Mondale-Ferraro campaign) for once there seemed little sexist about her downfall. McCain lost and despite the angry denials by the idiotic John Bolton on the BBC’s 2008 election coverage, Palin helped him lose.

The real loser in 2008 was perhaps not McCain or Palin, however, but Hillary Clinton. Had she ran in 2004 against an enfeebled Bush she might have won. Even the unimpressive Democratic nominee Senator John Kerry came close to toppling Bush that year.

Instead, she waited until the race was clear of incumbents in 2008. This would have worked normally but she completely misjudged the strength of Obama’s candidacy and arrogantly fought the election as if the nomination was hers by right. The voters reacted against both this and her support for the war in Iraq.

It is doubtful she would have won the November election anyway. There has long been a strong entrenched hostility towards her since her husband’s first presidential campaign in 1992 and much of this undeniably has a strong misogynist element. She would also have been hampered by the Whitewater scandal and other baggage from the Clinton years.

But we’ll probably never know. After all, Obama’s 2008 victory was certainly against the odds too. It seems unlikely now that the secretary of state, already well into her sixties, will ever sit in the White House as president.

2012 has thus far proven a less thrilling race with Obama less dazzling than in 2008 and Governor Mitt Romney clearly a loser from the outset.

Perhaps it’s a shame Sarah Palin did not run this time after all. At least it would have been amusing.