David Cameron admitted that he hadn’t delivered on beating the ‘Punch and Judy’ politics of Westminster, the kind of irritating showmanship that the televising of Parliament has encouraged (along with the wearing of colourful ties). This is at least half of what Barack Obama is promising – the new politics, a blissful era of cooperation and getting things done. They haven’t even decided the Democratic nomination and yet, oddly, Obama is already running negative ads on Clinton. She forced him into it, you might say – and rightly so. He’s attacking her attacks on him, you might also say. Not always – but it doesn’t really matter. The real point here is the impossibility of the project in itself if it is already failing, and before even crossing party lines.
Cameron is in opposition, as Obama claims he will be against ‘the Washington establishment’ when (if) he sweeps into the Oval Office, installing his new Camelot with him in much the same way that Bill Clinton did in 93. Will this lead to much talk and no action like the early Clinton era, while America twists in bitter economic winds?
Still, perhaps we should have faith. Obama is nothing if not inventive, recently denying that the voters were electing him at all. Distancing himself from the comments of Pastor Wright (who believes AIDS was introduced to cull the black populations of Africa and the US, and isn’t afraid to say so) Obama claimed that the election was not about the people but the project, which had the people at its heart – so the voters were electing themselves into office, not him. There is some truth in that people will usually like what they find familiar; mirrored body language in social situations, that sort of thing. From an advertising perspective, candidates could be seen as luxury versions of their consumers; like them, but able to reach the parts that acme candidates just can’t.
Like McCain and his many outspoken allies (most of them radio hosts), Obama has been forced to disown Pastor Wright, but the religious man sees it in a philosophical light:
“I do what I do. He does what a politician does.”
This implies the new politics is a tactic, one John McCain also claims to adopt, and one from which he may be slipping away now the Republicans scent blood over Obama’s association with Wright. Would Obama hold firm, come the general election?
Whatever else happens, it would be hard for the candidates to outdo this particular stunt they performed for the WWE. Who would you fancy in a Battle Royale between ‘Hilrod‘ (oddly convincing, but then she’s on familiar ground), McCain and his McCainiacs (autocue very slow in the first half, then warms up when he has a go at Obama) and Obama’s aping of The Rock (no eye contact until the punchline, looks exhausted). Horrific. But get ready for worse come November, new politics or none.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 