Support Democracy

I am delighted that Karen has begun a blog on the US Presidential Election 2008. We must take democracy seriously, not because it is essentially the best form of government but it is the best we have got. We have become too comfortable with our system, in the UK. The notion of a military dictatorship seems remote: it is something suffered by other people, somewhere else in the world. We have become bored by politics and affronted by the insult to our intelligence which is the spin espoused by so many politicians. We need to engage. Young people need to be proud when they vote for the first time; becoming a citizen ought to be the mark of adulthood. Let us see what is happening in the USA, where liberty and the pursuit of happiness are seen to be inextricably joined to the selection of a President who embodies the common purpose of the state as well as protecting the freedom of the individual.

Monday's Guardian gives some food for thought

An interesting perspective from Monday's Guardian on the USA elections:

The US presidential race has exposed our blandness. We can no longer afford to feel smug superiority about the American system. They, unlike us, can thrill their voters writes Jackie Ashley on Monday January 7, 2008 The Guardian.

What's the most interesting, inspiring and unpredictable politics around just now? It has to be the Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee wins in the Iowa caucuses followed surprisingly then by unexpected victories for Clinton and McCain in New Hampshire which has thrown the US presidential campaign wide open. It makes a striking contrast to the dull predictability of British politics, with the bland new year messages from the same old perspectives.

Almost as long as I can remember, British political types have sneered at the American system. Once upon a time, before New Labour and triangulation, we used to lament that US politics lacked ideology - that the Democrats and Republicans were just different brands of the same gassy product, Pepsi and Coke. We in Britain had real politics, Labour and Tory. Later, furious about Vietnam and South America, we talked of the bullying of the American empire; later still of the grotesque corruption of big-money presidential campaigns and the negative TV advertising; and then of Big Oil, hanging chads and the dynasty-politics of the Bush and Clinton era.

Much of the criticism was fair, and shared by many millions of Americans. Our implied superiority, after the tawdry cash-for-honours, cash-for-questions and cash-for-favours scandals of the past 15 years, and our deep involvement in Iraq, has rather bitten the dust. But the convergence of political ideas and the need to raise ever larger sums of money have blighted the reputation of the world's proudest democratic power, no question. Washington hasn't been Camelot for a very long time.

Yet, reflecting on the wide-open campaign of 2008, it's obvious that British critics - and European critics generally - are guilty of smug superiority and ignorance in writing off the strengths of the American system.

Is it naive to feel a shiver of delight at the thought of those Iowa meetings, where clusters of local voters gather in halls to argue and converge round candidates, after weeks when the rich and confident political machines have had to tour diners, begging for support? New Hampshire, like most states, has a blander and more modern version of democracy, and soon enough the big money will kick in. Nevertheless, there is an unpredictability, optimism and openness in the 2008 race that many on this side of the Atlantic will envy.

The Democrats have a real choice - should they get behind their first black president, or behind their first female president? The Republicans have equally unusual options, notably a Mormon multimillionaire, a liberal New York Italian, and a no-cash, high-on-optimism evangelical Christian with a sense of humour. What's the choice for national leader on this side of the pond? The usual middle-aged white man, or a slightly younger middle-aged white man, or a slightly better-looking younger middle-aged white man.

And though 2008 is proving unique in the range of candidates in the US, it is not without parallel. America has been given quite a lot of unexpected options over the years, from its first Roman Catholic president to the big range of populists of right and left who emerged later. Bill Clinton's first campaign reminded us that the primaries produce surprises again and again.
In Britain we have a political class that is increasingly drawn from people who become full-time politicians at university and never really move outside the circle of thinktanks and advisory jobs they hold while waiting to get a seat. Yet somehow the American system throws up genuine outside-the-beltway challengers. The vast cost of US campaigning means that most of them fall by the wayside. But there's always a chance of someone, such as Obama, suddenly gaining momentum.

Yes, a lot of this is because of the sheer size of the US as well as its wealth, which means there are far more locally famous, experienced and funded politicians, senators, congressmen or mayors, far from the world of Washington thinktanks. We could not begin to mimic that in Britain. But instead of dismissing American democracy in our snooty way, we need to ask what we can learn.

What would be the equivalent of Iowa, New Hampshire and the early primaries, in a British context? I suppose we'd have to try to imagine Ken Livingstone, Helena Kennedy, Ken Clarke, Trevor Phillips, Richard Branson and - oh, why not, Polly Toynbee - tramping round Yorkshire, touting for votes and support, with the knowledge that one of them will become prime minister.
It is a ludicrously anti-parliamentarian vision, of course, but let's pursue it. The attraction of getting people with outside expertise into top jobs has been recognised by Whitehall since the days of Harold Wilson. But somehow our political class has narrowed in social and intellectual range since the 1960s, not expanded. There is a lot to be said for shaking the mix every few years, rather more vigorously than our system allows.

Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg talk about constitutional change. If they acted on the admiration for the US race that I'm sure they all feel, they wouldn't come up with a system of primaries for No 10. But they could explore other ways of getting some variety and unexpectedness into our politics.

A very small, directly elected second chamber derived from large PR-based super-constituencies might lure more people into the fray. Then you could get locally successful politicians, businesspeople, thinkers and campaigners into Westminster with as much legitimate right to sit in cabinet as anyone today. It would certainly be preferable to today's awkward patronage system. There are probably a dozen or more alternatives and they may seem equally crazy. But the narrowness and predictability of British parliamentary politics demands a little radicalism.

That's not to say we should import US politics in structure or funding, and it's not to be dewy-eyed about any of the candidates. It is perfectly possible that Obama would eventually prove a disastrous and illiberal president, and more than likely that behind Huckabee's generous smile lurks a nasty, ungenerous mind. But the Americans at least have plenty of time to probe a range of potential leaders who are debating the disaster of Iraq with a clarity and vigour you don't find in London. I don't know whether that is transferable, but it should make us feel both envious, and a little humble.