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Candidates running against movement
Some big wins but no knockouts. That's the bottom line for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
- By Bill Scheider, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:55 February 11, 2008
- Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama at a "Stand For Change" rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
- Image Credit: AP
Atlanta: Some big wins but no knockouts. That's the bottom line for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
As the campaign moves beyond Super Tuesday, both contenders face the same problem: they're both running against a movement. And that's never easy. Movements have passionate supporters who don't like to make deals.
Look at the split in the Democratic Party among voters polled in 16 primaries on Super Tuesday.
Men voted for Barack Obama. Women voted for Clinton. Young voters were for Obama. Older voters were for Clinton. Whites and Latinos were for her. African-Americans were for him. Democrats who didn't go to college were for her. College-educated Democrats were for him.
Obama is the successor to a long line of New Politics Democrats who advocate an idealistic, post-partisan approach to politics. Eugene McCarthy (1968), George McGovern (1972), Gary Hart (1984), Michael Dukakis (1988), Paul Tsongas (1992), Bill Bradley (2000) and Howard Dean (2004) all ran against the politics of the past.
So does Obama. He said at CNN's Democratic debate in Los Angeles on January 31, "I don't think the choice is between black and white, or it's about gender or religion. I don't think it's about young or old. I think what is at stake right now is whether we are looking backwards or we are looking forwards. I think it is the past versus the future."
Obama appeals to well-educated liberals who want a high-minded approach to politics that rises above crass partisanship. Anything that reminds them of the "Clinton wars" of the 1990s is a turn-off - very likely including Bill Clinton himself. When Democratic primary voters were asked which candidate would do the best job of unifying the country, Obama was preferred over Clinton 50 to 39 per cent.
There is, however, one big difference between Obama and previous New Politics Democrats. None of his predecessors got many black votes. A movement that allies upper-middle-class liberals and black voters looks unusual - and powerful. Especially because it has an issue.
Democrats who said their top issue was the economy went for Clinton. Democrats who said their biggest concern was the war in Iraq went for Obama.
John McCain is also facing a movement: the conservative movement, which has controlled the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan.
McCain insists he's part of that movement. "I enlisted as a foot soldier in the Reagan revolution," McCain says in a campaign advert in which the Arizona senator is described as "John McCain, the true conservative".
But McCain won the Republican primary vote on Super Tuesday without carrying conservatives. Southern conservatives voted for Mike Huckabee. Northern conservatives voted for Mitt Romney.
That's one reason McCain won: happiness in politics is a divided opposition.
Bill Schneider is CNN's senior political analyst
US Presidents: 10 things you never knew
1. George Washington's salary as president was $25,000 - (Dh91,805)George W. Bush's salary is $400,000 (Dh1.4 million).
2. Theodore Roosevelt became the first president awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
3. George W. Bush is the 43rd president, but there has actually only been 42 presidents: Cleveland was elected for two nonconsecutive terms and is counted twice, as the 22nd and 24th president.
4. The oldest president ever elected was Ronald Reagan (1981-89). The 40th President took office at the age of 69.
5. Twenty-six presidents were lawyers before becoming president
6. Andrew Jackson was the first president to survive an assassination bid.
7. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) was the youngest president to ever serve. He was elected Vice President on a ticket with President William McKinley. In September 1901 a deranged anarchist shot McKinley twice in Buffalo, New York, and Roosevelt assumed the top office at 42.
8. Bill Clinton was the first US Democratic president to win reelection since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
9. The first and only President for a day was David Atchinson. Zachary Taylor was a staunch Episcopalian and refused to be sworn in on a Sunday.
10. James Madison was president when the British entered Washington and set fire to the White House during the War of 1812.
- CNN International
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