Wednesday, May 14, 2008 Arinday: A peek into the US politics By GH Arinday Jr. Sunfare
WITH the "magical" reality of modern communications, with the amazing speed in connecting the four corners of the world, the bruising primary electoral campaigns between two Democrat stalwarts vying for the official nomination of their party appears to be just happening in our backyards.
While the super-delegates shall finally decide as to who will hoist the Democrat's banner, it appears certain at this moment that Illinois Senator Barack Obama shall clinch the nomination, despite New York Sen. Hilary Rodham-Clinton stepping-up her campaign strategy to demolish the theme "change," which is the dynamo of her rival's mesmerizing campaign tack.
On the average mental level, it would appear that racial and gender issues would determine the results of the primary choice, a wart in the thinking of an "all-too-familiar condescension," as would likely appear in our own "political reality" where issues are subsumed by personalities.
There is some kind of romanticism to conjure that the land of the brave and the free would have the first woman president or a black man to lead the manifest destiny of a world power.
However, there is somewhat unusual in the present Democratic Party's infernal mini-combustion and the possibility of "cross-over votes" from the party in favor of the Republican's presidential bearer Senator John McCain. Such sentiments have been publicly voiced out by supporters of both Obama and Clinton to cross party lines. This possibility of "choice" change may usher an upset victory for the Republican standard bearer.
There is a great lesson that our politicians could learn on how the campaign for support be conducted based on concrete policies and proposed changes to improve the standard of life on material and moral spheres, some insignificant strident personal references notwithstanding.
In an era marked by several downturns not only in economic spheres but in every aspect of human life with diminishing spirituality in the face of the new specter of universal threat aggressively pushed by religious fundamentalists, the electoral results in the United States shall certainly influence events after the first decade of the present century.
It cannot be denied that the preponderant observations about US policies are that it is neither conservative nor compassionate. It is the triumph of the radical right to exert its supremacy over and above the tangential drift of other countries to assert their own policies over international issues. One could not avoid thinking that the superpower has adopted some of Orwellian-tainted policies as illustrated in the Iraq invasion on some unproven pretexts or perceptions.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is facing a dilemma with the surmounting rivalry between Senators Obama and Clinton in the convention. Howard Dean, the party chair, said either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama should drop out of the nomination contest after the June primaries to unify the party. Dean believes that they can't afford to have a divided convention; otherwise, the party would be having a difficult time to heal afterward.
While Clinton aims for landslide wins in two primaries to be done in West Virginia and Kentucky, it is doubted that Sen. Clinton could overhaul the lead of the first black contender for Democrat's presidential nomination, a concrete manifestation on how democracy works in a country, which symbolizes the paragons of free men and women exemplified by the idealism bared in the persons of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, and no less than Hilary Rodham-Clinton herself.
While the McCain-Obama epic duel is predicted, some pundits have some doubts on Barack Obama's becoming the first black president of the United States, given the racial strains of prejudice still embedded among the white segment as an inevitable factor.
Despite the "heavy baggage" being carried by the Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, dubbed as a clone of incumbent President George W. Bush, the average American voters, seduced by such "racial sentiment," may lead other Democrats to make a "cross-over" choice in favor of the Vietnam veteran McCain.
In the event, Barack Obama clinches the presidential nomination and Hilary Clinton refuses to play second fiddle to the Illinois senator, the Democrats would not have a well-paved road to Washington, D. C.
How about the Brown Americans-the Fil-Am community, which are reportedly inclined to favor the lady senator from New York? Would they make the difference?
It's just a guessing game, but American politics has taught us how to play the democratic game in a not-so personalistic approach.
