Billary vs. Obambi

The two top contenders at the moment for nomination as standard bearer for the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential elections in the United States are, far and away, the second-term Senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the sophomore Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

The other declared contenders so far, the 2004 vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, while no pushovers to be sure, are way behind in the preference polls. It may be indeed too early to put one’s money on any sure bets but the drama and the hype are clearly building over "the woman" and the "African-American."

Public opinion polls are asking: Is America ready for a woman President? Or, is America ready for a black President. On the heels of the Democratic assumption of control over Congress, and a continuing drop in the popularity of incumbent President George W. Bush over his handling of the war in Iraq, the widespread expectation is that the Democrats will return to the White House in 2008.

The Republicans won’t simply play dead and allow their opponents to run rough shod over the family jewels. Bush is doing his darnedest to salvage a collapsing position by trying to explain away his failed Iraq policy. His latest State-of-the-Union address was a desperate and unconvincing effort to divert national attention away from that central issue. None of this is seriously expected to stop the Democratic juggernaut.

Clearly, public curiosity and enthusiasm are focused on the two media-genic contenders. When the Illinois Senator’s "presidential rollout" did so well in New Hapshire last December, his advisers, many of whom were refugees from Bill Clinton’s campaign and White House staff, began to worry about peaking too soon. The reaction to Obama was only half-jokingly referred to as the mania that typically greets a rock star.

Hillary’s own announcement that she was throwing her hat into the presidential ring instantaneously installed her as the leading contender. A Washington Post-ABC News poll called her the favorite going-in, with 41 percent of Democrats polled choosing her over her rivals for the nomination, Obama included.

It seems to me that, this early, the Democrats are better advised to focus on a winning ticket of either Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton. While Hillary’s candidacy caters to those who pine away for the "glory days" of the eight-year Clinton presidency, the 45-year old Obama is said to be the only candidate who elicits public hysteria similar to that which John F. Kennedy enjoyed.

The 59-year old Hillary, while more experienced and sure-footed policy-wise, seems to draw the more lethal fire from such liberal bashers as that "we report-you decide" Republican mob at Fox News. However, as Newsweek magazine says, "Hillary is terrific at handling incoming artillery."

The trouble with both Hillary and Obama may spring from their very strengths. Newsweek warns that, "Hillary’s big problem might be less her sex than her husband’s – the risk that despite the nostalgia for his intelligence and competence, Bill Clinton’s sexual history and its myriad complications for her public persona will somehow intrude in ways that feel very yesterday."

On the other hand, Newsweek continues, "Obama’s problem may be less that he’s black than that he’s green." His inexperience in politics – he hasn’t even completed his first term as Senator from Illinois – and consequently thin record "could offer a handy excuse to those who consider President Barack Hussein Obama too exotic for their tastes."

As Obama himself explained in a stirring speech before the 2004 national convention of the Democratic Party, he is not the descendant of Southern plantation slaves. His father was born and raised in a small village in Kenya and was sent to America to study. While in school, the father of Barack (which means "blessed" in African) met his mother who hailed from Kansas.

Obama is a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law, and is married to an African-American lady, Michelle, who is a vice president of the University of Chicago Hospitals. Hillary, former First Lady to Bill, was educated at Wellesley College and Yale Law.

The polls seem to be saying that a small majority of Americans feel that they are ready for a woman or black President. Within that majority, though, more women than men, and more blacks than whites, disagreed. Thus, the tougher audience for Hillary seems to be her fellow women, the tougher audience for Obama seems to be his fellow African-Americans.

Still, the actual elections are a "lifetime" away, says an anonymous Clinton rival. There is time for Hillary to prove that while her husband will be a constant, and most likely highly visible, presence during a Hillary presidency, he knows enough to get out of the way and to accept that that presidency would not be a mere continuation of his own.

Many are convinced that although Obama at this time seems to present a blank page in terms of national policy – although a vocal opponent of the Iraq war, he did not have to vote for or against sending or financing an armed expeditionary force – he is bright and articulate enough to make his views clear in the road to the nomination and on the stump.

JFK’s speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, is quoted by Newsweek as reminiscing: "(Obama) reminds me in many ways of Kennedy in 1960. The pundits said he was Catholic and too young and inexperienced and wasn’t a member of the party’s inner circle. They forgot that the nomination wasn’t decided in Washington but out in the field."

None of this denies that there remains an undercurrent of racist feeling in certain parts of the United States that could be unleashed by an Obama candidacy. If so, we will see some of that surface in the trek to the nomination and, if he’s picked, during the actual campaign. One who does not believe in such speculation is Obama himself, who openly calls for "a politics of hope" rather than a "politics of cynicism." He calls this "the audacity of hope."

As for Hillary, most analysts suspect that the issues she will have to illuminate have nothing to do with her gender. Indeed, they concede that America is probably more ready to accept a woman president today, than it is a black president. In her case, it seems, the issues will be her approach to national and world security…and her famous, but lightning-rod, husband.

This is shaping up to be a more exciting race to the American presidency than we’ve been used to. Now let’s see what the Republicans do to shake off the "legacy" of George Bush and put more pizzazz in the candidates they offer up.