[The Telegraph, U.K.]

Frankfurter Rundschau, Germany

'Lincoln, Kennedy, Obama'

"In the United States, hope and optimism are more than just political side dishes. They are the internal engine and power source of the nation. … Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy: Hope is the magic potion administered to the nation at its darkest moments."

By Dietmar Ostermann

Translated By Ulf Behncke

January 6, 2008

Germany - Frankfurter Rundschau - Original Article (German)

It can be no  coincidence that the two victors in the U.S. state of Iowa had the same message: “CHANGE” transformation, alteration. Like a thunderbolt the word is now being heard across the land. Right at the beginning of this long presidential election campaign, Democrats and Republicans alike have voted for those candidates who most embody a new beginning.

Among the Democrats, that candidate is Barack Obama, the young and promising man with an incredible biography, great charisma and an intuition about the desires and longings of the people. Not that his policies or promises differ all that much from "Iowa-loser" Hillary Clinton.

But in the United States, hope and optimism are more than just political side dishes. They are the internal dynamo and power source of the nation. Americans revere those presidents who manage to get this dynamo in gear. Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy: Hope is the magic potion administered to the nation at its darkest moments. And as many people throughout the country perceive it, these are tough times. What would otherwise be considered pathos and kitschy is now being gratefully accepted. With her sober and matter-of-fact ways, a presidential candidate like Angela Merkel wouldn't stand a chance in the United States - and Hillary Clinton must now fight for hers.

Experience doesn't count for much in times like these - that's the second lesson of Iowa. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell had huge amounts of experience when they formed George Bush's alleged Dream-Team. It all ended in Iraq’s desert sands, where the superpower remains stuck to this day. Neither has experience saved Hillary Clinton from error - she voted to authorize war in the Senate. Long before, green horn Obama correctly warned about the consequences of that fatal decision. Yet Hillary Clinton centered her election campaign around experience. That was always a workaround, because it not only concerns her experience, but the political achievements of Bill Clinton. This will certainly influence Democrats substantially, but in the process, Hillary has turned herself into a candidate of the past. In Iowa, the party didn't want to follow her back to the 1990s.

For Hillary Clinton, it will undoubtedly be a bitter irony if the deep-seated desire for a new beginning at the end of the Bush era now damages her election chances. After her third placing in Iowa, the aura of inevitability of her presidential candidacy has vanished. If she wants to turn the tide, Clinton will have to base her candidacy for the White House on new grounds.

The conservative variant of hope looks significantly different to that of the Democrats. Mike Huckabee, a resource-poor nobody from the provinces has shocked the Republican Party establishment. Unlike Obama, this pious man from Arkansas not only questions the established hierarchy, but the very ideological foundation of the party in question. In order to become a majority, the conservatives brought religion into their camp. Now Huckabee wants the waiters to be the cooks. Of those who turn to God and go to church on Sunday, he wants establish a conservative middle-class coalition.

One doubts whether the Republicans have a future as an American Christian Social Union , but it's not impossible that Huckabee could win the Republican race, because none of the other candidates has emerged as the glue to hold the shriveled party and its feuding factions together. The only thing refreshing and new about second placed Mitt Romney was that if anything, the millions he spent only promoted his campaign debacle.

If the call for change now captures even the Republicans, with or without Huckabee, it will amount to a resounding rejection of George W. Bush. If the message of Iowa continues, the president's own party is likely to desert him during his last year in office. It doesn’t have to be that way, but American conservatives have more than enough cause to reconsider their future. In Iowa, twice as many Democrats as Republicans attended the caucuses. But for now, hope and optimism are the domain of their political opponents.

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