Michigan, the ugly

The role that New Hampshire plays in US presidential politics as the primary state geared my impetus for writing this blog. Swept into the state's hands-on action in the run-up to the 2004 election, I was wide-eyed with admiration. This, truly, is the democratic process, I thought. This is the people connecting with their politicians, putting them on the spot, picking holes in policies... This is the politicians, being tested on every level from stamina on the gruelling schedules to quick-thinking in the genuinely open forum conditions of house parties and town hall meetings. New Hampshire has been the first primary state for a very long time and its inhabitants have taken their role almost as a constitutional responsibility on behalf of the rest of their vast country. They are the nation's testing ground.

The old entrepreneurial spirit of America, however, turns out to be incompatible with this concept. The entrepreneurial spirit sees campaign expenses as a potential profit line. Politics be damned. Look at all that money!

Hence, the ugly jostle to steal dates, to push the primary dates forward until the first primary becomes meaningless.

Michigan is the latest culprit, going for January 15. That steals a month from the old schedule and pushes the primary primary and caucus states to yet earlier dates just to keep the status quo. It also forces the candidates to put more resources into Michigan - and that is what the game is all about. It is not that Michigan's 10 million people are in the least bit interested in taking on the political scrutiny game or even that they could. The sort of hands-on scrutiny that takes place in New Hampshire can only happen in the manageable demographics of a 1.3 million-strong New Hampshire, not in a hugely populous state. House parties in Detroit, population 5 million? Whose house is big enough? Intimate political contact is not a mass activity.
Mass political communication is - guess what? Advertising.
Hence, what Michigan seeks to achieve is to harness the campaign dollars into television advertising campaigns in Michigan. Forget human contact, genuine scrutiny of candidates and their policies. Let's have your dollars and whoever has the best advertising agency can win the presidency.
This is the short-sighted and mean-minded campaign now being waged in the USA. "Entrepreneur" is another word for "get rich quick" or "greedy". By definittion, entrepreneurship lacks wisdom, foresight or magnanimity.
These US states playing ugly entrepreneur games with the presidential primary are doing a serious disservice to their country.

Joe Biden, Democrat presidential candidate from the tiny state of Delaware, put it very well:


"Powerful interests are trying to change the Democratic nomination for President into a game of Monopoly, replacing the retail politics of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire with a process in which the only credential necessary to be President is to be the wealthiest candidate.
Under the current calendar, voters can regularly meet candidates in their homes, town halls and diners. This provides an almost one on one opportunity to hold candidates accountable for their ideas and records for solving the most pressing issues facing this country. The communities of Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire provide a diverse array of voters and a level playing field for candidates to compete in, as a lead up to the larger states which will decide who the next Democratic nominee will be for President.

I call upon all of my fellow Democratic candidates to reaffirm their support for the retail role Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire and publicly ask their supporters, such as Democratic Senate Leader Mark Schauer, and Governor Granholm to oppose any attempts to break the Democratic National Committee’s “calendar window” as Republicans did in Florida on behalf of Mitt Romney.”

YouTube marries CNN - debate update

My brush with CNN in the context of its media facilities New Hampshire Democratic debate has turned me into something of a CNN fan. Hence I was not surprised to see the news station recognising the Internet not only as a resource but as a media partner and creating the bright new phenomenon of a co-hosting arrangement with YouTube. In many ways, this was more significant than the South Carolina Democratic debate it embraced. It was media history.

Of course, a lot of secrecy and fuss surrounded the questions submitted to the Debate via you Tube. No one wanted to blow the pioneer partnership before the event - so the teasers told us of the quantities of questions submitted and the fact that they would be screened.
One has to note that YouTube now is a vibrant political playground. All the presidential candidates have posted video in YouTube and there is a mass of political satire and commentary available amid the piano-playing cats, pratfalls and teen showoffs on the video-sharing empire which, I may add, is only two years old and already is a household name which was sold to Google for something like $1.6 billion.

It is realistic to see YouTube as a player in the political progress - and a brilliant idea to encompass its global participating in the American political process.

It also made for a livelier and more interesting debate with video questions from all sorts of people all over the place.

So, the big and usual question: Who won the South Carolina Democratic debate?

Of course I am going to say Hillary did.
There in her vivid magenta in the line-up of besuited men, she was as much as visual stand-out as she was a political one.


The more of these debates they do, the more the New York Senator shines.
She never has to try. She is simply serene and authoritative, confident and ready.
One reads the ongoing polls and observes the public reticence which holds her back - the old baggage being carted around by those who are stuck in a time-warp of media negativity from the old Whitehouse days when she was cutting her teeth, so to speak. One by one, they come around as they have any direct contact with Hillary. That is all it takes. That is the transformative moment.

The other Democratic candidates realise this and are working hard to compete. It is a bit sad in some ways. They are an impressive lineup, exceptional politicians each and every one.

Barack Obama continues to breathe down Hillary's neck - and his media performance improves steadily.
He fronted well in the debate.
He did, however, look alarmingly thin. If he was lean and hungry before, he is a bit gaunt in front of the camera now. Not good. The stress showing? Perhaps he should have kept on smoking. I am disappointed that he caved in on the smoking thing.



John Edwards, as a Southerner, was in home territory in this debate and he was just as shiny and gorgeous as ever. A very telegenic man. He is handsome and comfortable in the medium and he fared well.

Very tellingly, both Edwards and Obama showed the face of their fear of Hillary by sniping at her and her policies. She sniped at no one.

Joe Biden always presents well in debate and he did so again in this one.


Bill Richardson, a particularly classy and worthy candidate, never seems to come over as well on the electronic media. He may be a better candidate than Biden, but he is always pipped on the television.
Chris Dodd seemed a bit stodgy - despite the airing of his own YouTube advertisement which is all about the qualifications of his thick head of white hair.

Mike Gavel might have been on the end of the line but he was in the forefront of the camera when it panned from the YouTube screen to the candidates - and he got a lot of visual prominence, if not so much in spoken word.
One of the reasons for the latter was the fairly peremptory way in which he answered the questions. He has taken gruff to the extreme. He is pouting and snarling like a rather jealous loser - which is a pity.

Dennis Kucinich is a regular loser in the presidential candidate stakes and he does the whole thing with panache and good spirit. He will never admit defeat - and he knows he has a lot of important egalitarian messages to convey and he will use the platform to keep the true left alive.

The more of these debates they do, the more obvious it becomes that there are really just the three runners - Clinton, Obama and Edwards, in that order.

CNN puts on the Debate ritz

No need to consult the map or ask for directions to Saint Anselm College where the big Democratic Debate takes place tonight. It was more like following a colourful breadcrumb trail - campaign posters and groups of chanting supporters raising the profile for their chosen presidential candidates marked the route through the back streets of Manchester, NH. If the roadside turnout reflects voter popularity, John Edwards is leagues ahead with his bunches of banner-waving people. Then again, if spread of lawn placards is the indicator, Bill Richardson had won the front yards of Manchester, prongs down. On the other hand, if size is the winning quality, Hillary just stood right out. Her signs were few, but absolutely huge.

As we swung into the College campus drive, just past the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, the supporter crowds chanted raucous welcome.

The media parking area was a bit of a suprise. It was as big as an oval and already crammed with cars. We were directed down and in, a long way, ending up parked beside a shock of pink rhododendron at the far end. Of course it was raining - so we donned the old rain gear and shuffled off through the long wet grass. Blech. My smart sneakers are not waterproof.

It was quite a walk to the Press Centre where, despite the door being right there, we were told to walk the perimeter of the building and approach the credentialling room from the other side. More rain. More shuffling through long, wet lawn. Then the queue to get in. Security is tight. We went through the full airport routine - emptying pockets into plastic trays, having bag contents scrutinsed, walking through screener arches, getting the wand once-over...

And then it was the credentials. No problem at all, and a cheery welcome from CNN's delightful Mara Gassmann, with whom I had been liaising for access to this event.


"Seats are allocated," we were told. "You just have to find them."

Oh, dear. Who could have imagined the scale of this thing! Where to begin looking when faced with row upon row upon row of tables and chairs laid out in the Carr Center - a room so caverous and vast it felt like like Centennial Hall on steriods.

And there, laid out on the trestle tables, were the names of America's top journalists..the NY Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post... Bruce swooned.

We figured that, as antipodean ring-ins, would not be in their midst. I headed for the back of the hall, and sure enough, in the back row, there were Bruce's and my name between Le Monde and, how nice, NewsLtd Australia! CNN has very thoughtfully placed our terrific NY correspondent, Stefanie Balogh, beside us! Camaraderie, no less! Beside us is Le Figaro and De Spiegel along with the London Telegraph. In front of us are Japan, Sweden, China and Switzerland. The world media, in other words.
Thus do we sit with the vista before us, beautifully placed to see the ebb and flow of almost 800 journalists - along with scores of TV monitors all showing CNN's coverage of the event.

An hour and a half before showtime, dinner was served. CNN has spared no expense - hot Atlantic salmon and Chicken kievs, masses of veggies and rice, cakes, bread, fruit... The head caterer assures me there are no trans fats, either. Yippee.
It is all presented with classy, china-thin disposable plates and even very upmarket disposable silverware. CNN has done this all before and does it with style.


Journos are meandering all over the place, looking for their seat allocations. Just chatted to a Washington blogger - he wanted to ask me the same things I wanted to ask him. In the end, we agreed that Bill Richardson may be the candidate to back if one was looking dispassionately at the big picture.

And this is what we are here to do.

And the debate verdict is...

There they stood behind their oddly tapering lecterns under the kitsch, over-arty red, white and blue MSNBC debate set - Hillary Clinton, the tiny one, Barack Obama, the tall one, and then John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Biden - and who the hell is that other fellow?

I'd never heard of Mike Gravel, the former senator from Alaska.
Well, we all know him now. The man who said he felt like a potplant perched at the edge of the lineup turned out to be the star of the debate. Talk about fresh blood and fresh perspective. He is an old-fashioned sage. A no-bull man! A realist.
Terrorism, he asserted, "has been with civilization from the beginning, and it will be there till the end. We're going to be as successful fighting terrorism as we are fighting drugs with the war. It doesn't work. What you have to do is to begin to change the whole foreign policy."
On Iran and nuclear threats, he noted that the US was the greatest violator of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. "We signed a pledge that we would begin to disarm, and we're not doing it. We're expanding our nukes. Who the hell are we going to nuke?" he blustered.
He also said this:
"We have no important enemies, We've got to deal with the rest of the world as equals. Who are we afraid of? We spend more on defence than any other country...the military controls not only the budget, it also controls our culture." Wow!

Straw polls following the debate have given Gravel a surprising surge.
On Daily Kos, he has zoomed to a 10 per cent vote, ahead of Kucinich, Biden, Richardson and Dodd - but behind Hillary, Obama and Edwards.

I was pleased with Hillary Clinton, however. She was my winner. She has a confident clarity. Her voice has a headmistress timbre, so we pay attention. She is emotionally controlled - calm and rational. She also is comprehensively informed on any topic you throw her. She can think on her feet. She is diplomatic, always knowing what not to say as well as what to say. She has been criticised for this, but, hell, that is what politics is all about.
She also has been endlessly criticised for insufficient mea culpa about voting for the War on Iraq. How many times does she have to regret it? How many times does she have to say that, if she knew then what she knew now, she would never have done so? Anyway, she said it all again - and was criticised all over again by the likes of Edwards and Kucinich.
It was a rather delicious irony to note that she was the most generous-spirited among the candidates, ready to give credit to others.
Oh, yes, she stood right out.

John Edwards lost ground for me in the debate. He says his $400 haircut was "a mistake which has been remedied now". How? He paid the campaign fund back? That is really not a remedy to the primping vanity of $400 haircuts. Edwards went on to defend his "privileged" millionaire lifestyle by claiming not to have forgotten his roots and went into a Southern boy, Down Home childhood tale of how the family left a restaurant when his millworker father realised he could not afford to pay its prices. I think we have had enough of these cornball anecdotes from Edwards. I, for one, have heard them all before. Furthermore, he was the only candidate to suggest that he felt a need to consult his "Lord" .

Dennis Kucinich also lost ground. I had respected his uncompromising leftist views - but in the debate, he showed a bitchy streak I did not like, sniping at his peers, glancing at Hillary and saying "apologies aren't enough". What the hell? Apologies are enough - and forgiveness is all. Kucinich also admitted to being a gun-owner. Hillary was one of the few who indicated never having owned a weapon, at the same time reiterating careful placations to the mighty gun lobby. Everyone seems to do this.

Bill Richardson is known as the darling of the gun lobby. He is a Westerner and he owns guns - but thinks the screening processes for gun purchase are lacking, as evidenced by Cho and the Virginia Tech shooting.
I found Richards a bit bombastic, something of a hothead and too fond of speaking in lists. From this quaint pressure-cooker appearance, I wouldn't put him in the White House.

Joe Biden is charming and he looks the way a president should look. When asked about his greatest mistake, he said it was in "overestimating the competence of this administration" and "stupid enough to believe that I could influence George W Bush's thinking". He brought the house down when, accused of "uncontrolled verbosity" and being a "gaffe machine" and asked if he would have the self-control for the role of president, he said simply "yes" - and not another word. Silence.

Chris Dodd pointed out his considerable qualifications for the job of president but was underwhelming in debate, especially when he spoke on civil unions versus same-sex marriage. He is for the former and against the latter. I liked his idea of diplomacy rather than war, and his quote: "This administration treats diplomacy as if it were a gift to our opponent; a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength".

Barack Obama was my biggest loser. He seemed extremely nervous, which is forgivable. But he also seemed arrogant. He never makes a speech that does not mention his wife and children, which is beginning to grate - and, gratuitously, he mentioned them again. His big mistake in my book was when he went to town on Iran, showing that he has swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the current media campaign to turn Iran into an immediate threat. It is rather reminiscent of the Iraq and "weapons of mass destruction" campaign. Obama said that he believed that Iran was a nuclear threat as well as the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the form of Hezbollah and Hamas and therefore was a threat to the security of the USA.
My conclusion is that Obama is, indeed, the young and inexperienced candidate - and it showed. He is simply not ready for the presidency.

Hillary is.