Six months and running

American leadership politics have a way of making those who run the Boston Marathon appear neither all that committed nor disciplined.

In the current Democratic race to the White House, which started well over six months ago, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have shown that they both “have the right stuff.” And with six months yet to go before the finish line it’s perhaps sensible to begin to fathom what might be useful to those of us watching from north of the wall.

Barring any turbulent turn of fate, Barak Obama will be the first person of colour to be nominated by a major party for the American Presidency. He has run a brilliant campaign against a very strong opponent. He has smarts to burn and is not afraid to display them, even when it does him no good, for instance in Appalachia or with the NASCAR gang. Indeed, in an example of life imitating art, he has as much charm, pizzazz, determination, moderated passion and strategic sense as any of the heroic characters on West Wing, the television series with which his campaign and his supporters have arguably nourished their political imaginations.

If the Clintons and Obamas find enough reason to work together toward the finish line in November, Obama should be the leader of the land near which we Canadians lay, as a mouse to an elephant. And lest the reminder of this metaphor concern you, be sure that after eight years of Dubya, there is little an American administration can do that would make things worse for us, or for the world.

Indeed, the election of Republican John McCain would be a vast improvement, even if he chooses not to repudiate any of George W’s many stupid, vainglorious mistakes.

One question that must be answered is whether the outcome—a close contest in which the expected winner and early frontrunner finally loses—is evidence that the Party suffers from a deep-seated opposition to women in power. This needs to be settled, especially by women who have access both to the experience of the campaign and to better data than appears now available. But the sexism thesis of Hillary’s loss seems, from this distance, unconvincing, even though there remains far too much sexism in North American politics and society.

Take a chance on humanist liberalism

Most of the strongest support for Obama beyond the Afro-American vote was from the better educated. In the Democratic Party at least, well-educated Americans are past the sort of bull-headedness that occasions sexist voting. Hillary campaigned on the past successes of the Clinton White House, but Democrats simply preferred to take their chances with the future of Obama’s humanist liberalism rather than its turbulent, Clintonian past.

Women in Canada’s centre-left politics have little to worry about, I think, from Hillary’s loss, though it may be difficult not to feel disappointment. She lost the nomination, if indeed she has, not because she’s a woman; she just lost. And she lost, it will be remembered, by not very much at all.

There are many other theses to posit, questions to be answered, and lessons to be learned from this continuing marathon, including thoughtful speculation about how American-Canadian relations would be altered in an Obama administration. One simple one is that if Liberals in Canada think they can win the next federal election by reminding folks how much better things were under Chrétien than under my man Steve, they should think again. It didn’t work for Hillary and it likely won’t work for Stéphane (which is why, one might suspect, Stéphane is honing a message of and for the future, though a Barak Obama he is not.)

Perhaps the most interesting question as the marathon goes forward is whether, after centuries of degradation and frustration, a person of colour can attain the highest symbolic and most powerful office in American democracy. Although there are a myriad of issues in play, Americans, if things continue on their current trajectory, may get a genuine opportunity to declare themselves. Is the U.S. a racist nation or not? And to be sure, the whole world will be watching.