Democrats and Europeans" I ignore him at your peril …

Financial Times Deutschland, Germany

Europe Would Do Well Not

To Dismiss McCain's Chances

"The reproach so often repeated by Obama - that McCain offers only a sequel of the failed policies of George W. Bush - misses the point: McCain has contradicted Bush's policies so often, that no one can embody calls for change the way he does."

By Thomas Klau

Translated by Julian Jacob

March 6, 2008

Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)

The saga goes on - the epochal battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination. Once again, the voters have resisted the pressure of the media, which was so quick to choose a favorite candidate.

In the U.S., people love quick results and clear statistics and a fast declaration of winners and losers. But Americans also appreciate the courage of those who don’t give up. Hillary Clinton has fought on after being written off and has gone on the attack when many were urging her to clear the field for Barack Obama. On Tuesday [Mar. 4] , the voters didn’t abandon her.

The senator’s tenacity and her steadfastness in times of great stress could be her best argument, if in Denver in July it comes down to drawing party delegates to her side. Clinton will need arguments because despite her victory yesterday, the numbers continue to speak against her. In terms of the number of delegates, Obama is out in front and will be almost impossible to catch - the arithmetic and dynamics of the approaching primary dates work in his advantage.

Now the battle for the Democratic nomination will become harder and perhaps dirtier. Clinton’s revitalized election team will make every effort to keep the Illinois senator on the defensive. Obama's squeaky-clean image will suffer if for the first time, the press keeps its klieg lights on the senator's more problematic contacts. It is here that he is vulnerable to attack. He's member of a Black church congregation in Chicago, the leader of which has maintained contacts with Black racists. And the corruption trial against a former Obama supporter, building contractor Tony Rezko, is imminent.

DEEP-SEATED PARTY CRISES

With the withdrawal of Mike Huckabee, the Republican primary battle has ended with the formal selection of John McCain. The dramatic struggle between two exceptional Democratic politicians has drawn attention away from the fact that McCain's candidacy is also a turning point - a break in the position of Republicans which, as far as party politics is concerned, could mean a historically and culturally deeper break than the Democratic Party's nomination duel.

Politically, Clinton and Obama are conventional Democrats, located in the middle-left of their own party. But McCain is the first Republican presidential candidate in many years who has ascended in spite of the resistance of the culture warriors - that aggressive nationalistic wing of the Party. Unlike the leading figures of the present U.S. government, his TV is not tuned to Fox News - the propaganda channel of the right - but MSNBC - and anyone who knows the United States understand how much that says.

On foreign policy, the Senator is an outspoken hawk; he takes the conflict with Islamic fundamentalism as a very personal challenge. In Europe, few governments would view his election with concern. But politically and culturally, this son and grandson of high-ranking naval officer is a classic, marginalized, long-term patrician Republican, which loathe - both politically and personally - the zealous preaching of the Republican right.

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McCain has expressed his contempt for the extremists of his party so openly and so often, that icons of the right like Ann Coulter, to the great bewilderment of her fans, proclaimed a sudden political affection for Hillary Clinton. He has made concessions to the hard-right over recent years, for example by refraining from his previous criticism, reconciling with some Evangelicals and by presenting himself as a conservative in his campaign commercials. But the mutual dislike is deep and real.

And it is precisely his distance from what the party became after the Christian fundamentalist rise to power that makes McCain the best candidate that Republicans could field. You can criticize his opinions or accuse him - as you could any successful politician - of compromising his integrity for the sake of political success or survival. But the reproach so often repeated by Obama - that McCain offers only a sequel of the failed policies of George W. Bush - misses the point: McCain has contradicted Bush's policies and those of his friends in the Party so often, that no one can embody calls for change the way he does.   

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MORE EXPERIENCE AS CLINTON AND OBAMA

As far as assessing the behavior of the American electorate, recent months have shown how amazingly unreliable the polls can be. But they all confirm the completely plausible conclusion that John McCain enjoys a great reputation among independent voters. The navy pilot so badly tortured as a prisoner during Vietnam is a war hero, which in ultra-patriotic America could win him extra points. With McCain, the Republicans offer every independent voter a candidate who is a decent and for many an acceptable alternative to that offered by his Democratic opponents.

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Nobody knows how many Americans there are who will decide on election day, regardless of political content, to choose a White man rather than a woman or the son of a Kenyan to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the first dignitary and standard-bearer of the most powerful nation. It should in any case be few, even as in Europe there would probably be more than a few.

McCain offers everyone concerned about Obama’s lack of experience; Clinton’s First-Lady past; the positions of the Democrats; or the gender or skin color of their candidates; an alternative that in many ways, isn't the worst. We Europeans would do well, with all of our fascination with Clinton and Obama, to also prepare for the possibility that the next U.S. President will again be a Republican.

*Thomas Klau is an FTD columnist and heads the Paris Office of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

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[Posted by WORLDMEETS.US March 10, 11:55pm]