Like everyone else I’m enjoying watching the US Presidential race. However also like I suspect a lot of people I’m not really following it closely enough to know what the different candidates really stand for so all I’ve got is how I feel about it. I definitely (and have always done) feel more a Democrat than a Republican, and at the moment I feel Obama could really be something different for America, while Hillary’s been around too long, but this not a very informed view”¦(there’s plenty of those around the internet you can find!).
However as a member of a party which has also chosen its candidate for head of government over the last few months, I do doubt whether I’d be very happy with their system for selection. The stringing-out of the process with part of the election happening every week, certainly seems to increase media coverage.
But in the recent Lib Dem leadership contest, I certainly don’t think I would have been very happy if, for example, party members in, say, Cumbria, had got to have their say months, before the rest of us, followed by, I don’t know, Hampshire - and that between them they had knocked out several candidates (and indeed if the result had gone the other way last night and Obama had won both Iowa and New Hampshire many pundits would have been saying by now that Hillary’s campaign was almost finished).
And that by the time that less than half the other counties in the country had voted (the equivalent of Super Tuesday) it would all have been over and if you lived in one of the “non-Super” counties you would have had effectively no say at all.
It does seem a strange way to do it. And it’s very easy just to see US politics as just another form of entertainment - a bit like watching the dog races, as someone put it to me this morning, with most people just mildly interested in who wins this kind of sporting contest. And the extraordinary corruption of American politics does add to that sense.
But you have to knock yourself on the head a bit to remind yourself that in fact it’s not just a bit of fun but actually quite important who enters the White House next January. Obama would be very different to Hillary - so even if I have no real idea of what those differences, I hope that the select tiny proportion of the US population who’ve actually had the chance to take that decision, do.
January 30th, 2008 at 21:07
I was very interested in this entry when I read it - as was my girlfriend Suzanne. We both thought you were absolutely right: a lot of people over here in the States think the primary / caucus system by state is ridiculous. It seems to be a monster created out of the various hedges and safeguards that have been installed in the system at various times to stop certain groups from having an undue amount of influence.
For a contrary point of view, you might be interested in this opinion piece from MSN news today (30 January). It’s not serious analysis - in fact it’s very pedestrian and written in the fashionably-world-weary, ordinary-joe, I-don’t-know-much-but-I-know-what-I-don’t-like style that MSN articles often have, and it misses the point that many Americans think the primary / caucus system is rubbish - but it’s interesting, if predictable, that it’s being said at all.
Hope you’re well!
All the best
D.
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Why Britain needs a president
The year is 2012. It’s election season. Voters of the small village of Mountsorrel in Leicestershire are gathering in their church hall to hear a speech by some candidates.
Only around 100 locals are present - a moderate turn-out given the weather (chilly) and the location (even chillier). Yet there are almost the same number of journalists, TV presenters and camera crews on the premises. In fact, the place is packed. There is live footage being beamed to News 24 and Sky. Throughout the country millions are tuning in. There has never been anything like it in Mountsorrel’s otherwise utterly uneventful existence.
Why the hullabaloo? Why the hysteria? Simple. It’s the first official ‘primary’ in the race to become the first ever British President. History is being made in that tiny church hall, as the great and the good from across the land are put on the spot by ordinary, unassuming citizens with ordinary, unassuming concerns. Look, there’s Richard Branson, being held to account by a postal worker. There’s Esther Rantzen, the tables turned, being grilled by a teaching assistant. And there’s Trisha Goddard, getting a hard time from a care worker.
What this country needs
A dangerous fantasy? Hardly. An elected president is just what this country needs. Not just because it would mean we had more say over precisely whom, rather than simply which party, rules the nation. Not just because it would mean an end to the power wielded by our unelected monarchy. And not just because it would open up British politics to people from outside the Westminster gravy train, resulting in a dazzling electoral clash of all the talents.
No, the main reason why we should have an elected president is because of the way they’d be elected. The nuts and bolts of the campaign. The actual business of getting from village hall to the Houses of Parliament.
Imagine if the scenario above actually came true. Imagine if the people who wanted to become our first president had to do so via a campaign that went from shire to shire, seeking the mandate of people at the most face-to-face level possible. That the results of that Leicestershire primary would, as in the United States, go on to shape the nature of the ultimate race for power. That real grass roots politics became, well, real again.
Prime Minister’s questions.
Horrific
Sure, some would think it horrific. A whole year spent on one election campaign? It’s bad enough our present general election campaigns seem to go on for months. And all those celebrities?! They know nothing about politics. Let them loose on Britain and we’d be off to hell in a star-encrusted handcart.
Well, we already live in an age of permanent electioneering. What’s Prime Minister’s Questions if it isn’t a shameless vote-winning exercise? At least a full-blown presidential campaign would formalise things so we all knew exactly when an election would be happening. Fixed terms could also be introduced, like in all other presidential-based countries.
As for personalities, well, who says it’s necessarily a bad thing? Surely it’s an absence of personality that is so discolouring and destroying the British politics of today? If someone has charisma, the inclination and the insight, what’s not to let them have a shot at president?
Works wonders
Think also of how, by having separate elections for the Commons and the Lords, we could have much less of a one-party state and, say, balance a Labour president with a Tory Commons. Again, it works wonders in America. Think of those famous ‘checks and balances’ written into the constitution, which most recently brought Democrats the majority in Congress while a Republican remains in the White House.
Fair enough, you might say, but how about this: a President Blair? A President Thatcher? The mere thought turns the stomach.
Margaret Thatcher (Image © PA/PA Wire/PA Photos)
I can’t deny that does sound rather chilling. But then, who says they would ever have become president in the first place? And anyway, rather than serving for 10 and 11 years respectively, they’d have been out after a mere eight (again, following the US model). Besides, it’s highly likely that, had we had one vote for Blair and another for our local MP in the general election of 2005, the result would have been very, very different.
So let’s take inspiration from the fiery, unpredictable, thrilling race for power that’s currently going on in America. Let’s sweep out the grim, grey phoney rituals of British politics. And let’s think seriously about the one thing that really would, in the words of Brown, Cameron et al, ‘return decision making to local people’: the first UK president.
An opinion piece by Ian Jones, MSN homepage editor
January 30, 2008.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not those of MSN or Microsoft.