Race to the White House
Put simply, last week's Democratic Primaries changed the nature of the 2004 presidential election.
Regardless of the margins, Senator John Kerry's five wins out of seven states has not only given him an overwhelming percentage of delegates, but the momentum and confidence to set his sights beyond the convention, to the White House itself.
Despite victories for Edwards in South Carolina, and Clark in Oklahoma, the 2004 Presidential contest went national last, to become a race between two men.
This is certainly good news for Bush. Now he can deploy an offensive campaign strategy targeting Kerry's personal weakness as a political leader, and driving a wedge between the liberal wing of the democratic party and their prohibitive nominee. In this he is helped by the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling to strike down the state's final barrier to a definition of marriage that encompasses same sex couples.
Kerry now finds himself in a similar conundrum to that faced by Bush. Core voters within each party are waiting to hear their candidate speak out either way on same sex marriages, but Kerry is still not certain enough of his democratic base to risk alienating conservatives dissatisfied with Bush. Once again, the democratic party are likely to elect a nominee who runs flat out for the centre.
That the two person contest has started already will certainly impact the significance of the primaries and caucuses in the coming week. While polls indicate that Kerry has Maine and Michigan sewn up, support is far from assured in Washington, Virginia and Tennessee. These are the make or break states for Dean, Edwards and Clark respectively. Each must post a win in order to maintain any sort of momentum, and both Clark and Dean are likely to drop out should they fail to do so.
However disdainful it may be to democrats, they must rally behind the halting, uncharismatic polemic of John Kerry this week if he is to be allowed to mount a serious opposition to Bush.
With each win he looks like a winner, but that does not mean that he has grown any more charismatic, or any more purposeful. The attention he warrants in British and American press is as a campaigner, not a policy maker. Not even the de rigeur rant against Bush's handling of the war in Iraq can be taken seriously, despite the medals he stoutly refuses to take out on the hustings. The fact remains that he voted to go to war, and that it is Dean who has mobilised the 18 to 25-year-olds for whom the issue is a vote swinger.
Instead, Democrats will be looking to Washington State this Tuesday to see if Dean can gather enough support from a primary traditionally dominated by the demands of the environmental lobby.
He may be a hero on the campaign trail, but if Kerry wishes to mount a serious threat to Bush, he this week has to convince a governor and a senator and a general and a lawyer to sit down and shut up.
What a pity that none of them support the New England patriots: he could have appealed to their sense of sportsmanship.
The conclusion of Tom Rayner's article on the 2004 Presidential Campaign is paradoxical.
Pedantry aside, how can the American people recognise the problem that lies underneath their noses if their own gullibility is its root? Mr Rayner appears as blinded by Democratic spin doctors as he suggests 'middle America' is by Republicans. The Democratics are confused, incoherent, and out of touch with cherished American values. To argue that these values are the result of blindness to a media storm through which only British press can see clearly, is an oversimplification insulting to Republicans currently studying at Oxford.
If Mr Rayner believes Americans are deceived by Bush as to the extent of US involvement in Iraq, I would point him towards the State of the Union Address, where there was no attempt to sideline the issue. I would not be alone in arguing that the American media is doing a far better job of unpicking this hellish political nightmare than many British pundits. Arguments that regime change in Iraq was Clinton policy have only recently begun to surface in the UK. The American media acknowledged the significance of oil in any plans to forge middle-eastern stability years ago, and do not need to convince a public that understands the threat that Saddam posed to their everyday lives through that he posed to oil exports. To believe Americans are deceived by their media is to ignore the quality with which it makes sense of the propaganda issued from Republican and Democrat offices alike.
For the Democrats to win the election they must face up to the truth of the American consciousness, which lies inherently with the minority of the far right. The extension and significance of the Patriot Act is still discussed in the American press. The passage of Bush's Defence Bill and unprecedented support for increased military capacity shows that America feels safer with a heightened state of alert. That may not provide security for Britain but, as even the Democrats understand, Britain doesn't vote in the Presidential election. This does not mean they are exempt from Democratic spin. A major focus of Bush's justification of the Iraq War has been British Government support, and its inherent association to the American people of an alliance with Britain. Democratic candidates would like nothing better than to demonstrate to potential voters that such an association is false. The British affiliation with the Democratics is a product of media manipulation, however indirectly, by their spin doctors every bit as skilful as the White House communications office.
Like many others I listened to the State of the Union waiting for a bombshell. The previous week, the Christian Right alleged that Bush was ignoring the religious values of core American voters. In the finale of his address Bush proposed federal funding for programs teaching 'abstinence only' to children, and to amend the constitution to prohibit gay marriage and allow faith-based institutions to receive federal funding. There could be no more unequivocal demonstration that Bush believes the support of the Christian Right will win this election. However the Democratics attempt to mobilise liberal America, if Bush wins this election it will be time for British Bush-baiters to grow up, and stop treating the American public as a slower, more gullible version of themselves.
12th Feb 2004