Pork barrel politics of Barack Obama

The main concern about the $787 billion package is that around $400 billion of it (estimates vary) is being used to buy off various Democratic constituencies, granting funding to local projects dear to the hearts of the congressmen whose votes were required to get the package through, and bailing out discredited banks and businesses that many feel deserved to go under, writes Simon Heffer. Only yesterday Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, asked for a change in funding rules to save the San Francisco Chronicle, an ailing newspaper in her own home town that has, by coincidence, loyally supported her. It is not impossible that her wish will be granted. This is what the Americans call pork-barrel politics, and there is enough pork in this scheme to keep pigs in business for decades. Simon Heffer Daily Telegraph
Full article: President Barack Obama: Perhaps he can't fix it. . .
People: Obama to appear on Jay Leno show

Obama administration swerves to the Left

Meanwhile, the sharp swerve to the Left accelerates, writes Janet Daley. One of the most startling measures to which the Obama-Pelosi-Reid administration has committed itself is the Employee Free Choice Act (commonly known as the "card check" bill) which does precisely the opposite of what it says on the tin. The Act would effectively abolish the right of trade union members to secret ballots. In other words, it would give American union bosses the kind of power to intimidate their membership into strike action that used to belong to British union leaders before the Thatcherite reforms. I was amazed to discover that most US Republicans were unaware that the statutory right to a secret ballot was one of the most crucial aspects of the 1980s British industrial relations revolution. Janet Daley Daily Telegraph
Full article: The Republicans can take heart as Barack Obama staggers to the Left
The Obama White House

The stimulus bill, imperfect as it is, does indeed represent an enormous political victory for Obama, says Michael Tomasky. For reasons tactical as well as substantive, liberals ought to declare victory and dance on the vast empty tundra that is the Republican present. Liberals should press the administration for the most progressive outcome possible. That's fine and laudable. But at the same time, let's understand that they got about 80 per cent of what they wanted here, and getting 80 per cent of what you want is awfully rare, in politics or marriage or at the office or anywhere. Michael Tomasky The Guardian
Full article: Be happy, worried liberals. Obama's bill is a triumph
The Obama White House

I am struck by how many little ifs and buts hedged even the customary welcoming words from world leaders, says Timothy Garton Ash. Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel offered warm and Christian congratulations, but added that "no single country can solve the problems of the world". Nicolas Sarkozy said: "We are eager for him to get to work so that with him we can change the world." (So, you see, France is ready to lead once more.) By the time we get to China, Russia, or an Arab world angered by Obama's silence over Gaza, the caveats come not as delicate barbs but as heavy artillery shells. Timothy Garton Ash The Guardian
Full article: Obama's grand narrative may unite his country but divide the world

Obama returned to climate change several times, writes Jonathan Freedland, until it became one of the speech's clearest threads. "Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet," he said. Later he vowed to "harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories". There was a time when all this would have been condemned as dangerous radicalism in an American politician. But Obama's conservative style - the fact that he invented a new tradition this year, by speaking at inauguration eve dinners in honour of Colin Powell and John McCain - gives him the space to act differently where it matters, on the substance. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: All the conservative trappings freed Obama to frame a radical message
The Obama White House: a fitting speech for a time of crisis

Let whoever will be cynical do so today: they will have their I-told-you-so moments, writes Polly Toynbee. Political passion is unfashionable, risky, naive and destined for disappointment. Enthusiasm is rare in British politics, but today is a reminder that it is always worth celebrating the better over the worse. The hope is not just for what the man will do, but that his brand of politics rubs off on politicians everywhere. It wasn't until Obama was elected on a tax-the-rich ticket that Brown and Darling dared to follow suit, 11 years late. This is a day for politicians to take heart and dare to challenge recycled focus group prejudice. Copying Obama needs to become a global habit. Polly Toynbee The Guardian
Full article: We will all remember where we were today - even in lazily cynical Britain
President Obama: his progress to the White House in pictures
Americans: Will the White House survive Obama's interior designer?

Whenever the British appear in Obama's autobiography, they play the caricature of reactionary old-world fogeys. He imagines his late grandfather sitting out his old age in a freshly scrubbed hut but still hearing "the clipped voice of a British captain, explaining for the third and last time the correct proportion of tonic to gin". Clearly, Britain needs a charm offensive. And it is apparent that its man in Washington, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, is not ideal for the task. Leaving aside his pre-election memo describing Obama as "aloof", "insensitive" and "decidedly liberal", Sheinwald's impeccable FCO credentials and well-cut suits might send Obama into a post-colonial funk. Tristram Hunt The Guardian
Full article: The perfect gift to soothe Obama's British suspicions
American Transition: Hillary promises to wield 'smart power'

Many presidents have learned the hard way that Congress, especially the Senate, serves as the cemetery for grand presidential schemes, writes Michael Tomasky. If Obama and his aides miscalculate this committee chairman's hunger for a new bridge in their district or that senator's fondness for soybean subsidies, the [$775bn stimulus] package could be bottled up for weeks. But passing it quickly is of vital importance, for substantive reasons (to get the economy cranking as quickly as possible), and political ones (to get unemployment, which is expected to rise dramatically, back down to acceptable levels by the time of the midterm elections in November 2010). Michael Tomasky The Guardian
Full article: For now, the highest-value chip is in Obama's pile
Alexander Cockburn: Team Obama a slap in the face to Obama's base

The problem in the President-elect's home state must be startlingly endemic, says Gerard Baker. The reason the Governor was being taped was that he was already under investigation on corruption allegations. The investigation will shine unwelcome light on Obama and his aides. That will require a delicate dance around falsehood to preserve the obligatory confidences of politics. It will call for an exercise of tremendous balletic skills not to trip up. He wants the sound that greets his presidency to be an operatic overture of hope; not the foul-mouthed mumblings of a politician who sounds like he stepped out of The Sopranos.  Gerard Baker The Times
Full article: A scandal straight from a Sopranos script
Alexander Cockburn: Rod Blagojevich scandal raises some seasonal cheer

Obama has appointed veteran Democrats, and kept some of Bush’s appointments, says Gerard Baker. It doesn't sound much like the change that America was promised. But new leaders often arrive with an agenda and a team that offers change with reassuring continuity. Margaret Thatcher's first Cabinet in 1979 was stacked with "Wets" - moderate Tories who openly disdained her radicalism. What matters is a combination of leadership and circumstances. There is a profound sense now that the US is at an historical pivot. The economic crisis will surely call forth a change in its political economy - how government leads and interacts with the people.  Gerard Baker The Times
Full article: Why Barack Obama picked a political Who's Who

Exhausted is the best word to describe the so-called arc of instability from the Mediterranean to Islamabad after eight years of western intervention, says Simon Jenkins. Yet any traveller to these parts at present is overwhelmed by Obamania. From the dinner tables of Lahore to the lecture halls of Beirut's American University, the president-elect carries an astonishing burden of expectation. To a people for whom George W Bush became synonymous with mindless anti-Americanism, Obama's race, name, moderation and lack of bombast have risen like a messiah from another land. Were he to visit Cairo or Beirut or even Tehran, he would be greeted as a custodian of promise. Simon Jenkins The Guardian
Full article: At last this exhausted region is energised - by its old foe

The appointments he's made so far shed crucial light on the Obama presidency to be, says Jonathan Freedland. First, we know the new administration will break from the old by valuing expertise and experience - quite a contrast after eight years of cronyism. Second, Obama does not want to be surrounded by people who are nice, but by people who are effective. Yes, he's hiring a lot of Clinton's old staff, but he's hiring them as political professionals who will take a brief - ultimately authored by him - and get the job done. The Hillary nomination is the one that gives me pause. But the other signs are encouraging. The only real criticism of Obama's presidency? That it hasn't started yet. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: Obama's choice of a team of rivals says much about the president he will be
American Transition: news, gossip and analysis in the weeks before Obama takes office

Obama has his work cut out, says Gerard Baker. Bill Clinton used to worry to his advisers that he couldn't ever achieve true greatness because there were no big challenges any more. The one thing we can say with certainty is this: if Obama can somehow navigate the US safely and prosperously through the swirling currents of the next four years he will really have a claim to greatness. The biggest political challenge is going to be how to alternately please and restrain a Democratic-controlled Congress. There's a danger and an opportunity in this. The danger is he gets pushed by them towards policies that might be unpopular. The opportunity is that he can, on occasions, stand up to their demands and win credit for his toughness - something President Bush never seemed able to do.   Gerard Baker The Times
Full article: Only a great president could cope with all this
Alexander Cockburn: Obama's grim in-tray

Liberals and anti-war types should not declare the new president a kindred spirit too hastily, says Jonathan Freedland. It's true that he avoids the phrase 'war on terror'. But that is not because he thinks there is no war to be fought. His disagreement with Bush was that the latter had failed to define America's enemy clearly. It was not an abstract noun - terror - but a specific organisation with a specific leader, namely al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Put simply, Obama is no dove. He is just a much smarter hawk, his eye more sharply focused.    Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: The president-elect is not a dove - he is just a much smarter hawk
Alexander Cockburn: America's revival

Obama's victory does not represent a general move to social liberalism, says Janet Daley. Americans vote as individuals on the basis of their own needs - which is why the economic crisis turned the polls around from favouring McCain to favouring Obama - and they vote for an individual, not for a programme of ideas. So Mr Brown, and those breathless Leftists who believe that they have been redeemed by the Obama moment, are in for a disappointment. An Obama presidency will not repudiate the profound American belief in free enterprise or the moral worth of individualism. There is only one lesson that both parties can justifiably take from the US election: promising tax cuts wins votes.    Janet Daley Daily Telegraph
Full article: Barack Obama has only one lesson for David Cameron: tax cuts win votes

An early test will be his response to the extraordinary sabre-rattling by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, says Simon Jenkins. Medvedev's proposal to station missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad between Poland and Lithuania is a crude reaction to George Bush's location of defence installations in a number of former Warsaw pact countries. It is so clearly a challenge to Obama's resolve that it demands an immediate reply. The opportunity is for a classic show of firmness combined with an openness to negotiate. Kaliningrad could yet be Obama's Cuban missile crisis - the geographical parallel is eerily similar - before he has even taken office. Simon Jenkins The Guardian
Full article: All the cliches about colour obscure the real challenges awaiting Obama

The new president is a natural listener and conciliator, which will help him win friends, says Max Hastings. But he wants America's allies, and especially the European nations, to do more - especially in Afghanistan. A senior fellow of US policy think-tank the Council on Foreign Relations, says: "If I was a European leader, I would be nervous. It has been very easy to say 'no' to President Bush. Given President Obama's huge popularity with the European public, it will be much harder to say 'no' to him." So expect an early Obama European tour, in which he calls on Nato allies to provide much more financial and military assistance in Afghanistan. If European leaders turn him down, as they probably will, there will be tears before bedtime. Max Hastings Daily Mail
Full article: Now the going gets tough: Obama faces huge problems but we must pray for him as we ALL have a huge stake in his success

Obama has the ball, writes Michael Tomasky. He establishes the pace of play. The rest of us have to adjust. He'll do this his way. In the meantime, here are a few matters on which I feel pretty confident. He will obey the US constitution. He'll reject the Bush-Cheney theory of the "unitary executive" and will relinquish some of the executive power they amassed on matters such as domestic surveillance. Obama's United States will again follow the Geneva conventions. He won't force our intelligence agencies to "cook" their data to make a false case for an unnecessary war. He won't fire US attorneys for refusing to undertake highly political prosecutions. And so on. I want to see him take on the big issues, and over time he will. But for starters, that's change I can believe in. Michael Tomasky The Guardian
Full article: Steady as he goes
Do this, do that: the pundits line up to give Obama their advice

The crowd in Grant Park - scene of one of the most bruising chapters in recent US political history, the Chicago riots of 1968 - stood rapt, says Jonathan Freedland. They listened as Obama seemed to steel them for a collective effort unseen since the days of FDR. That crystallised a sense that had been building about Obama in the final weeks of his campaign: that he aspires to be not just a successful politician who wins elections, but a genuine leader - ready to steer his people through an onslaught of troubles. In this speech, and with his victory, Barack Obama has drawn a line under the last eight years, ending an American era that few will mourn. For today marked nothing less than the first day of the Obama presidency. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: Barack Obama's election victory brings a new dawn of leadership
Alexander Cockburn: America is eager to stand tall once again
In pictures: World cheers Obama victory

So, in one of those bizarre jokes that history sometimes plays, says Janet Daley, the United States is apparently about to choose as president the most inexperienced, untried and virtually unknowable (because there is so little to know) candidate who has ever run for that office at a time of unquantifiable international risk and unprecedented economic instability: a candidate who, as Bill Clinton revealed in a wonderfully back-handed "tribute", responded to the banking collapse by ringing every expert he could find (including Bill) to ask them what he should be saying. Janet Daley Daily Telegraph
Full article: Barack Obama victory will hurt US firms - and world economy
How election night will unfold

Just 40 years after Martin Luther King had a dream of a post-racial America, a coalition of white workers in Pennsylvania, retired Jews in Florida, and bilingual Hispanics in New Mexico is poised to put a black man in the White House, says Johann Hari. If the polls are right, Obama will be the first Democrat to win a majority of white votes since 1964. The country is capable of many crimes - but it is also open and free enough to produce the antibodies that begin to put them right. It gives us Dick Cheney, but also Noam Chomsky. It gives us Jim Crow, but also Barack Obama. Is there any better symbol of how the American Revolution can correct itself than the realisation that the first 26 presidents of the US could have owned the 44th president as a piece of property? Johann Hari The Independent
Full article: In the age of transformation, Obama's time has come
US Election: Obama team ahead in the polls but fearful of complacency

Sell Obamas now, says Simon Jenkins. They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy. If he becomes president, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year. To millions of Americans he will seem like a messiah. There are millions whom he can only disappoint. Abroad, this leader would have to end not one war but two, and bring sanity to an American diplomacy that is chaotic in an arc of instability from eastern Europe to the Himalayas. The anticipation that he will be a harbinger of peace, friendship and economic salvation is probably greater than for any American since Roosevelt. The burden of expectation is awesome and unrealistic. The qualities of charisma and rhetoric that Obama brings to this task may be a match for it. His declared policies are not. Simon Jenkins The Guardian
Full article: Obama stock is overpriced, and a crash could really hurt
US Election latest: Obama's poll lead narrows

Barack Obama has the kind of cryptic detachment that is an asset to any chairman, writes Timothy Garton Ash. Personally, he seems centred and rooted. You feel this is a man who knows who he is. Not because he has always known who he is, like the heir to "a long line of McCains", but because for a long time he didn't - and then worked it out for himself the hard way, through the search recorded in the autobiographical Dreams From My Father. He has, so to speak, the rootedness of the uprooted. He has also cut some of the waffle that we heard earlier in the campaign. Timothy Garton Ash The Guardian
Full article: The more Obama is tested, the more he shows his presidential mettle
Alexander Cockburn: Would McCain survive a full term?

If Obama wins, then it will be simply fatuous to claim that there are no black role models in politics or government, because there is no higher role model than the President of the United States. If Barack Hussein Obama is successful next month, then we could even see the beginning of the end of race-based politics, with all the grievance-culture and special interest groups and political correctness that come with it. If Obama wins, he will have established that being black is as relevant to your ability to do a hard job as being left-handed or ginger-haired, and he will have re-established America's claim to be the last, best hope of Earth.  Boris Johnson Daily Telegraph
Full article: Barack Obama: Why I believe he should be the next President
Prophet Obama smites King McCain
People: Boris Johnson backs Obama

Political consultants warned that John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis had all gone down because they had let their Republican opponents punch them and punch them again, writes Jonathan Freedland. Yet in this debate, Barack Obama plainly ignored that advice. McCain kept coming at him - attacking him for his relationship with an "old washed-up terrorist", accusing him of "class warfare", branding him an "extremist" on abortion - but Obama did not do what the conventional wisdom of campaigns past said he should. Sure, he politely tried to set the record straight, but only gently. And not once did he throw a punch back. When asked whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be president, he said it was up to the American people – and then praised her energy as a campaigner. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: The end of attack politics
Alexander Cockburn: Barack Obama has already surrendered his ability to bring about meaningful change
Third debate goes to Obama as McCain goes OTT with Joe the Plumber

The fact that regular people were asking most of the questions was bound to make it very hard for John McCain to pivot away from talking to a regular voter about his or her economic problems to saying, "and oh, by the way, let me tell you about Bill Ayers" and so on, writes Michael Tomasky. Add to that the fact that the stock market has lost 850 points in the last two days. The voter-questioners – far preferable to journalists – wanted answers to actual problems. There were no culture war questions – not one, about abortion or the Supreme Court or anything of the sort. And there was no room for McCain to hoist the red flags that so excite his base. There was a lot of jabbing back and forth, in fact too much of it, on both candidates' parts. And it didn't work for either candidate. Michael Tomasky Guardian Unlimited
Full article: What wasn't said in Nashville
Candidates fiddle while America burns

Whoever wins on November 4 will be ascending to the job at one of the most difficult times for an American chief executive in at least half a century, says Gerard Baker. When the votes are counted his people might ruefully conclude that the victor is not Barack Obama or John McCain. The real winner will be Hillary Clinton, or Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or some now happily anonymous figure whose star will rise in the next four turbulent years. Previous periods of apparently existential crisis in the US have certainly produced one-term disasters: James Buchanan in 1857, Herbert Hoover in 1929, Jimmy Carter in 1977 spring unpleasantly to mind. But the genius of America is that apocalyptic challenges have also, in time, produced the men to match them: Abraham Lincoln in 1861, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, Ronald Reagan in 1981. Gerard Baker The Times
Full article: This is the election you wouldn't want to win
Presidential TV debate back on

Here's the real problem with Mr Obama: the jarring gap between his promises of change and his status quo performance, writes Gerard Baker. There are just too many contradictions between the eloquent poetry of the man's stirring rhetoric and the dull, familiar prose of his political record. It's been remarked that the biggest difference between Americans and Europeans is religion: ignorant Americans cling to faith; enlightened Europeans long ago embraced the liberating power of reason. Yet here's an odd thing about this election. Europeans are asking Americans to take a leap of faith, to break the chains of empiricism and embrace the possibility of the imagination. The fact is that a vote for Mr Obama demands uncritical subservience to the irrational, anti-empirical proposition that the past holds no clues about the future, that promise is wholly detached from experience. Gerard Baker The Times
Full article: Barack Obama the speechmaker is being rumbled
Alexander Cockburn: Democrats panic in the face of Palin-mania

Until now, anti-Americanism has been exaggerated and much misunderstood: outside a leftist hardcore, it has mostly been anti-Bushism, opposition to this specific administration. But if McCain wins in November, that might well change, says Jonathan Freedland. Suddenly Europeans and others will conclude that their dispute is with not only one ruling clique, but Americans themselves. For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for. And the manner of that decision will matter, too. If it is deemed to have been about race - that Obama was rejected because of his colour - the world's verdict will be harsh. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for
Sarah Palin's turn for a disaster pastor
US Election: World poll backs Obama for the White House by four to one

Obama made his speech not about him but about his audience, writes Michael Tomasky. He gave away some of his power this night and gave it to the people. This to me was the single most important thing about the speech. The main victory Thursday night was that he successfully made the night not about him in a way that could feed into the Celebrity/Messiah/The One/He Who Makes the Clouds Part narrative that the McCain camp has so successfully deployed. Obama also addressed questions about his resume and experience, albeit indirectly. But he dealt with the questions about his preparedness and seriousness less with words than with demeanor. He did not look like a guy Thursday night whom Putin could push around and did not sound like a guy who couldn't run the army. Michael Tomasky Guardian Unlimited
Full article: Just the right speech
Alexander Cockburn: Barack Obama still needs all the help he can get

In one extraordinary passage [of his convention speech], Bill Clinton offered the way to a full reconciliation with Obama, writes Jonathan Freedland. Recalling his 1992 campaign, he said: "The Republicans said I was too young and too inexperienced to be Commander-in-Chief. Sound familiar?" He was declaring that Obama was like him, almost his political heir - and that may be the greatest endorsement of all. Barack Obama has great reason to be grateful to Bill Clinton today. He received both the backing of and a free tutorial from the man who was the best political campaigner in the second half of the 20th century. And after a vicious primary battle that had diminished his own stature, Bill Clinton also took a first, but large, stride towards restoring his own reputation. Jonathan Freedland Guardian Unlimited
Full article: The Big Dog can still hunt
Clintons give up the fight as Obama gets his nomination

It is interesting how the Americans, having rejected the British Constitution in 1776, now seem entranced by the idea of "a family on the throne", says Simon Heffer. Mrs Obama's speech was a pungent reminder of the differences that remain between our two cultures: any politician, or politician's spouse, who tried to push such a line in Britain would be laughed out of public life. There is an idealism, or at least a lack of cynicism, in American politics that will be incomprehensible to many in Britain. Family, and its use in politics to identify leaders with the led, is almost a taboo at home. But this is the politics of soap opera and the pursuit of ratings, driven largely by a cynical mass media. It is no proof of a man's fitness to govern a superpower.   Simon Heffer Daily Telegraph
Full article: How could having a good 'story' make Obama a good president?

For decades Republicans have been branding Democratic candidates outsiders, says Jonathan Freedland. Again and again they do it and with breathtaking chutzpah. Who was it calling Gore and Kerry sons of privilege? Why it was George Walker Bush, the son of a president. Who now tries to pretend that the Obamas are rarefied snobs with no feel for the way most Americans live? That would be John McCain, who owns seven homes. The US media go along with all this. There is a starting assumption that Republicans are, by definition, solid, patriotic all-Americans. It is Democrats who have to prove themselves.    Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Full article: Obama will struggle to win as the real American. He has to do it on his terms

The Left is preparing its excuse in advance for Barack Obama losing the presidential election, says Janet Daley. All together now, let's hear it: It's All About Race. Actually this election is more about what it means to be identifiably American. What makes someone fully American is having had an American childhood with its self-consciously patriotic schooling, which is purpose-made for a revolutionary republic that assimilates wave after wave of newcomers. Obama's problem is not so much that he is an African-American in the modern political sense of being a black American. It is that he is an African-American in the literal sense of being half African and only half American, who spent much of his boyhood abroad and who borrowed a consciously constructed black American identity from the south side of Chicago. Janet Daley Daily Telegraph
Full article: Obama won’t lose for being black but for not being American enough
Alexander Cockburn: Obama's bad month

There isn't an American president since Eisenhower who hasn't ended up, at some point or other, being depicted by the world's cartoonists as a cowboy astride a phallic missile, writes David Aaronovitch. It happened to Bill Clinton when he bombed Iraq; it will happen to Barack Obama when his reinforced forces in Afghanistan or Pakistan mistake a meeting of tribal elders for an unwise gathering of Taliban and al-Qaeda. Anti-Americanism is inevitable. The author Andrew O'Hagan defines their exported popular culture as "Spite as entertainment. Shouting as argument. Dysfunction as normality. Desires as rights. Shopping as democracy." This in the country that has sent Big Brother, Pop Idol, Wife Swap and Location, Location, Location over the Atlantic in the other direction, while taking delivery of Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Wire.  David Aaronovitch The Times
Full article: Eventually, we will all hate Obama too
Andrew Roberts: The decline and fall of the American empire

You have to go back to the Beatles' first US tour to find a transatlantic trip freighted with the sort of pregnant excitement that attends the one Barack Obama is about to make next week. Just like the Beatles, Mr Obama is a prodigiously talented revolutionary, the tribune of a rising generation. He hasn't claimed to be more popular than Jesus yet, but looking at the latest opinion polls in secular Europe, it might just be plausible. As even his opponent, John McCain, graciously put it this week, Obama’s star quality suggests there is still something about America that can inspire the rest of the world. The rise of Senator Obama is a reminder of what the rest of the world still admires - sometimes very grudgingly - about America: a constant capacity to renew itself. Gerard Baker The Times
Full article: Hysteria alert: Barack Obama starts world tour
Mud refuses to stick on Obama and McCain

Presidential candidates always have to shift towards the centre after a primary campaign, writes Jonathan Freedland. But Obama is not just any candidate. "You can't do it if you've run as Gandhi," says Leon Wieseltier. He contrasts Obama with the Bill Clinton of 1992. Both men offered to transcend the old categories of left and right, but Clinton did so by promising to be ideologically flexible. Obama's implicit promise is that he is above left and right, not because he is pragmatic so much as because he is morally good. In this context, says Wieseltier, U-turns are much less tolerable: "They compromise his radiance." There are other contrasts. Bill Clinton could finesse shifts by wrapping them in the language of policy detail; Obama is the very opposite of a policy wonk. He operates at 30,000 feet, somewhere in the rhetorical stratosphere.   Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
A Reagan of the Left? Not much chance

Europeans are going to miss Mr Bush in ways that they are only beginning to understand, writes Gerard Baker. They'll miss, first, having a villain in the White House. It's a really convenient excuse to avoid doing anything yourself on pressing global concerns. Obama is certainly going to want more European effort in Afghanistan. European governments can conveniently hide behind anti-Bush sentiment now to resist those calls, but that won't work when St Barry is in the White House. Also, Obama won't have a lot of political capital to spare to stand up to a resurgent Democratic Party in Congress over trade policy, and the US could slide further towards protectionism.  Gerard Baker The Times
Alexander Cockburn: Obama the chameleon

Both candidates for the American presidency have written strange, searching books, writes Johann Hari. Yet Obama, with Dreams From My Father ended up writing a complex story of colonised people – while McCain's Faith of My Fathers is a simple celebration of the coloniser. Obama can imagine the mentality of the boy in Basra whose father has vanished into an occupiers' prison, because it happened to his father and grandfather too at the hands of the British in Kenya. McCain's dad believed that Nixon and Kissinger should have bombed more civilians in Vietnam, with less restraint. (They killed three million.) So he believes that the natives only ever learn "to behave themselves" at the end of a big stick. So now we have to ask: which ghostly father will America choose?
Johann Hari The Independent
US Election: Clinton and Obama finally talk

At the start of the year, it seemed as if 2008 would pit two ideologically similar figures against each other, writes Jonathan Freedland. That's not how it looks now. Nowhere is the gap between them clearer or wider than on the question that matters most to the global electorate watching this battle: US foreign policy. McCain calls Obama the Hamas candidate and an appeaser; Obama says McCain offers nothing more than a third term of the Bush presidency. Can Obama brand McCain as a crotchety, Meldrew-ish version of the discredited Dubya? Or can McCain cast Obama as a naive novice who belongs in the student seminar room? The phoney - if gripping - war is now all but over. The decisive conflict is about to begin. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
US Election: Obama claims victory but Clinton holds off formal concession

Every decade or so the people who control the way we see the world anoint some American politician the Redeemer of a Troubled Planet. It's fairly clear now that, with the near-certain nomination by the Democrats of Barack Obama, everything is in place for the media to indulge in one of the greatest, orgiastic media fiestas of hero-worship since Elvis Presley. You will not see a finer example of the genre than the cover story of this week's Newsweek, which was entitled 'The O Team'. This rhapsodic inside account of Senator Obama's campaign reads a little like a cross between Father Alban Butler's Life of St Francis and the sort of authorised biography of Kim Jong Il you can pick up in any good bookshop in Pyongyang. Mr Obama is portrayed throughout as an immanently benevolent figure. Not human really, more a comforting presence, a light source. Gerald Baker The Times
Election latest: Bush slur unites Obama and Hillary

There's been a paradox at the heart of the Obama campaign, and it goes like this, writes Michael Tomasky. He has been, for millions of voters, a great inspirational leader, with a unique talent for defining the historical moment; but at the same time, in many ways, he hasn't been a very good day-to-day campaigner. Campaigns must have Big Themes, sure. But at ground level they are largely about controlling the daily and weekly grind of issues. Now think of the issues that have been front and centre since Clinton started her run in early March. They've included the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta); preparedness to be commander-in-chief; the federal gas tax; and, of course, the lamentable Jeremiah Wright. On all four, Obama has been back on his heels, answering criticisms.
Michael Tomasky The Guardian
American Election 2008

Obama’s sneering comments about the small-town working class might end his chance of power, says Janet Daley. Unlike in Britain, where the opinions of ordinary people are held in pretty much open contempt, in the US (which takes mass democracy very seriously indeed) they are treated with immense, electorally significant respect. That is why Mr Obama's remarks were jaw-dropping stuff in the course of a presidential election: no politician with serious ambitions ever, ever insults the great mass of small-town, working-class America. What Mr Obama did was to alienate, perhaps irrevocably, the constituency known as "Reagan Democrats", which is made up of much the same sort of voters who made it possible for Margaret Thatcher to win three election victories: working-class people who understood that their best interests were not served by Left-wing paternalism or class war but by the freeing up of economic opportunity. Janet Daley Daily Telegraph

Obama has to find a way to seize the offensive again, says Michael Tomasky. The Clinton campaign has shown that they'll hit hard and nothing is out of bounds. The Obama campaign can't quite go there. A man attacking a woman risks looking like a bully and making Clinton look "vulnerable", which is her sweet spot. The result is that a couple of Clinton's basic themes have gone inexplicably unchallenged. She really shouldn't be able to get away with counting 35 years of her adult life as valuable experience while reducing Obama's adult life to "one speech". But changing the dynamic of this conversation means that Obama has to start digging inside those 35 years, say her years at the Rose Law Firm, which weren't precisely the most civically uplifting of her life. Michael Tomasky Guardian Unlimited
McCain sews up nominations as Democrats self-destruct

The same morally simple narrative that hails Barack Obama as Luke Skywalker, bursting out of America's Death Star, is beginning to portray John McCain as a kind of Darth Vader, says Gerard Baker. There's a danger that the presidential contest will become not a debate but a silly battle of conflicting icons. You can be sure that, in the eyes of the rest of the world, and much of America, if Mr McCain wins it will be not because of his superior experience or the quality of his ideas, but because America is irredeemably racist. Instead of being the welcome break with America's recent past that he truly is, he will be painted as a continuation of it. Worse, that that, he will have won by vanquishing Hope and Peace. He will be for ever The Man Who Shot Bambi. Gerard Baker The Times
The mushroom cloud that hangs over McCain
US Election 2008

Barack Obama's wife said that the success of her husband's campaign had marked the first time in her adult life that she had felt pride in her country, writes Gerard Baker. This reveals much about what the Obama family really thinks about the kind of nation that America is. There is a caste of left-wing Americans who wish essentially and in all honesty that their country was much more like France. Though he talks with great eloquence about the future, Obama sounds for all the world like one of the long line of Democrats from George McGovern to Walter Mondale to Michael Dukakis, who became history by espousing policies and striking a rhetorical pose that was well out of the mainstream of American politics. Gerard Baker The Times
Obama and the West Wing
Obama surges past floundering Clinton

Consider the exit poll from California, says Gerard Baker. Hillary Clinton's largest single demographic voting bloc was those who did not complete a high school education, where she won 82 per cent, against just 15 per cent for Barack Obama. Among voters whose voting choice is not based on identity politics, Mr Obama's supporters are the latte liberals. These are the people for whom Starbucks, with its $5 cups of coffee and fancy bakeries, is not just a consumer choice but a lifestyle. They not only have the money. They share the values. They live by all those little quotes on the side of Starbucks cups about community service and global warming. For these voters the defining emotion is hope. Mrs Clinton is the candidate of what might be called Dunkin' Donut Democrats. They do not have money to waste on multiple-hyphenated coffee drinks. Gerard Baker The Times
Romney out of race, Huckabee next?

Obama's Super Tuesday-night speech quite literally told a story, almost a biblical narrative, about change spreading across the land. About how "what began as a whisper in Springfield soon carried across the cornfields of Iowa, where farmers and factory workers, students and seniors stood up in numbers we have never seen before". Stirring stuff. But there's another way to tell the same story. It would go something like this: "What began as a whisper on YouTube soon carried across the tall sheets of the New York Times…" The medium is not the message, but media and politicians are locked in a systemic clinch, out of which a triumphant narrative is eventually born. Timothy Garton Ash The Guardian
Barack Obama and the rule of three

Super Tuesday in America was also Fat Tuesday, but if anyone was expecting to gorge on the fruits of a decisive victory in the US presidential race they were out of luck. For the Democrats, it looked more like a slightly delayed Groundhog Day – yet another day that failed to resolve the tussle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the tightest battle for the party’s nomination in several decades. On the Republican side, the contest edged closer towards what has seemed nearly inevitable for the last couple of weeks – the steady, somewhat reluctant coronation of John McCain. Mitt Romney’s failure represents a stunning defeat not just for him but for the archpriests of the conservative movement. Gerard Baker Times Online
Super Tuesday plunges both parties into civil war

Being instinctively connected to the hopes of a generation is a much bigger thing than experience, writes Andrew O’Hagan. What Barack Obama delivered in 2004 wasn't just a speech, it was a clarion call, and it made people feel America could be dignified again. Obama loves his country, but he knows it has become a war-mongering nation in a state of corporate stupefaction. Ordinary people don't feel proud, they don't feel spoken to, they don't feel included, and Obama knows how to make people feel that change is an essential part of growth. He is a young yet old kind of Democrat for a new kind of age, which is why people talk of Kennedy when they hear him. He can inspire people to consider not only their rights but their responsibilities. Andrew O’Hagan Daily Telegraph
American Election 2008

The belief that both Obama and McCain have a serious problem in that they are "outsiders" - mavericks who have rebelled against the expectations of their party machines and faithful foot soldiers – is a misconception, says Janet Daley. In Britain to be a maverick or a chronic rebel is seen as a sign of immaturity at best, and instability at worst. To be unclubbable, to fail to play the game, is fatal to high ambition: at best, the perennial outsider who will not compromise his personal principles can survive on the margins, as a sideshow to the main event. But in the US, such bloody-minded individualism is seen as having the right stuff: this is, after all, a nation of rebellious colonials and intrepid migrants. When the outsider status is applied to Washington, it is particularly potent. Janet Daley Daily Telegraph
People: Maria Shriver turns out for Obama

Martin Luther King, John F Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and even Mahatma Gandhi: the figures with whom Barack Obama is compared are worrying ones, writes William Rees-Mogg. All four were charismatic figures who claimed to lead their nations in a new and idealistic way. What they also had in common is that they were assassinated. Such men attract the hatred of those who fear and resent their influence. When General Colin Powell was offered the Republican nomination in 1996, his wife persuaded him to reject it, on the grounds that he would be exposed to the assassination threat. Mrs Powell may have been right. The role of the first black president of the United States will be a dangerous one. William Rees-Mogg The Times
US Election 2008
Caroline passes on the sword of Camelot

The thin catalogue of complaints against the Clinton campaign from the Obama campaign were unfounded, manipulative and self-indulgent, writes Alice Miles. At best they called into question the oversensitivity of Mr Obama, at worst they showed him willing to play a divisive race card that is damaging the entire Democratic Party and tarnishing a great and historic electoral contest for the centre Left. The whole episode shows that he isn't tough enough for the White House. For since when has referring to somebody's past admitted drug use - if indeed the Clinton campaign ever intended to do that, which is far from clear - been a racial slur? It is the Obama campaign who are equating drugs with blacks, not the Clinton one. Alice Miles The Times
Democrats race for black vote

The Democratic primary battle looks like all the other contests from the past 30 years, writes Gerard Baker. These have tended to be between one candidate, the idealist, the outsider, leading an insurgency against the pragmatist, the party establishment. It was Edward Kennedy against Jimmy Carter in 1980, Gary Hart against Walter Mondale in 1984, Jesse Jackson against Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Bradley against Al Gore in 2000 and Howard Dean against John Kerry in 2004. Every time the pragmatist has won. Though Obama differs from previous insurgents from the party’s Left, and appeals to moderates and even Republicans, the result in New Hampshire is an ominous indication that he’ll struggle to take on a candidate who can so effectively mobilise the party’s traditional base. Gerard Baker The Times
US Election 2008: news, analysis and virals from the campaign

The two parties are engaged in a kind of double blind-date, says Jonathan Freedland. Democrats and Republicans are picking a candidate with no idea who that person will face come November. In 2004 Democrats knew they needed someone to take on George Bush and that fact led, in part, to their selection of John Kerry. Now both sides are squaring up against a question mark. If John McCain becomes the Republican nominee, Obama would surely look woefully inexperienced against him. But in a direct contest McCain’s candid, man-against-the-machine style would contrast well with the often robotic, technocratic Clinton, too. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
Election Blog

So Barack Obama is described (like Reagan) as making Americans feel good about themselves, as though the US was electing a therapist, not a president, says David Aaronovitch. It's an appropriate guide, maybe, for choosing a constitutional monarch or a symbolic president, in which the glad-handling, ambassadorial role is the most important. Presidents, however, inherits a world full of Musharrafs, Ahmadinejads, climate changes, economic slowdowns, unemployment, housing slumps and other problems unsusceptible to therapeutic generational transcendence. David Aaronovitch The Times
New Hampshire debates: who said what

2008 will be a vintage year for US presidential politics, writes Jonathan Freedland. Weirdly, the main candidates are all deeply flawed. Obama is young and inexperienced; Edwards, with his $400 haircut, has an authenticity problem; Hillary is seen as establishment and robotic. Among the Republicans, McCain, at 70, is old and an advocate of an unpopular war in Iraq. Giuliani has led a Technicolor personal life that might alienate him from a family-values electorate. Mitt Romney is a Mormon seeking evangelical votes. Then there's warm, folksy Mick Huckabee, who suggested in 1992 that people with AIDS should be quarantined. Whoever wins, there should be a move away from the Bush era, overshadowed by the war on terror, towards a politics that examines different questions and transcends old partisan dividing lines. Jonathan Freedland The Guardian
'Oprah effect' leaves Democrat voters cold