The Daily Novel

The contest for the US Presidency is still wide open. John McCain made a triumphant speech to his cheering supporters on winning South Carolina, beating both Mike Huckabee the evangelical hopeful and ex-Governor Romney. But Romney won Nevada. And the in the next big contest in Florida ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani fires his own long prepared salvo.

 Meanwhile Hillary Clinton’s supporters greeted her victory in Nevada ecstatically. And the pundits reminded us that it is Clinton who is still leading the national opinion polls. But detailed analysis of the votes cast shows that the Clinton and Barak Obama are both continuing to atttract devoted support but from entirely different groups. Obama is overwhelmingly getting the votes of the young, whereas Clinton is thought the best choice by the middle aged and elderly. Obama is getting almost all of the black vote and Clinton most of the women. And Clinton is also winning most of the Latino vote, which is dominated by Mexicans many of whom are illegal immigrants.

What is bad news for the Democrats is that the intensity of the battle has created a dirty tricks campaign by supporters of both leading candidates, with allegations that Obama was involved in shady property deals, for instance. Are there no powerful figures in the Democratic Party who can remind both candidates the the real enemy is the Republicans? Fighting together they might be unstoppable.  But the chances of them working together are slim.

In the American system the Vice President’s role is mostly cosmetic unless the President becomes ill or gets killed. For Hillary Clinton she might have less influence on decision making than she had when she was First Lady during Bill Clinton’s Presidency. And the people who are supporting Obama, partly because they don’t like Clinton, would not vote for a ticket when he was merely Vice President.

The American system does not allow for the way out that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown found when they were neck and neck for the leadership of the Labour Party. They able to seal a pact over dinner at the Islington restaurant of Granita. But Brown knew that he would have the immensely powerful and influential role of Chancellor of the Exchequer as well as support from many colleagues around the cabinet table. Under the American system the President’s position is far more powerful and he can choose ministers to run the economy and foreign affairs, who are not part of his own party hierarchy if he is so minded.