Hillary Clinton’s bid for presidency

S Nihal Singh

If an Indian general election is the greatest show on earth, an American presidential election is the most extravagant event fuelled by wars of word at every possible level, underpinned by billions of dollars. For an outsider, it is as if Americans have taken a holiday of months or longer to be crazy. Indeed, the crazy season gets longer with each succeeding election cycle.
In a worst kept secret, Hillary Clinton has announced her candidacy for the 2016 presidential race through a video highlighting the American version of the aam aadmi, declaring that she would be their champion making a pitch for the middle class vote, determined as the most stagnant part of society in income terms.
American observers are terming the Clinton candidacy as a game of thrones because Jeb Bush among Republicans is readying to proclaim his candidacy and with the Bushes and Bill Clinton having already inhabited the White House, a brother of the second Bush in office and the spouse of a two-term President are beginning to take on an Indian ring - the dynastic rule of the Nehru-Gandhis.
Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in as far as her Democratic Party's candidacy is concerned while Jeb Bush will probably win the Republican nomination though he faces a growing field of competitors, particularly from the Tea Party faction. But all attention is on Hillary at present because she has many accomplishments to her credit and some handicaps, and if successful in her second attempt, she would be the first woman President in American history to match Obama's distinction as the first black President.
Indeed, there has seldom been a more qualified candidate for the presidency: First Lady for eight years, an influential Senator, a US Secretary of State for four years. In the process, she has been carrying a lot of baggage. She has apologised for voting for the Iraq war ("got it wrong") and during her term at the State Department she faces flak for the infamous killing of the US Ambassador and his colleagues in Libya, her role in the Syrian civil war and the collapse of the Mubarak era in Egypt.
Hillary has also acquired the epithet of being a polarising figure although many are left asking the question: What does she stand for? Obviously, she has opted to stand as a champion of the middle class because it is the most influential and aggrieved section. But she will, in course of time, take up other causes as the campaign proceeds. And she has the great support of her husband Bill who, despite his infamous tryst with an intern for which he was unsuccessfully impeached, remains perhaps the most popular leader in American politics.
The famous victory of President Barack Obama, now in the last and final half of his second term, has left his Democratic Party in distress. It has lost a succession of elections while the Republicans have been riding high, winning both chambers of Congress. But Republicans suffer from their own problems, being obstreperous in the functioning of Congress and foist with their own petard by the eccentric right-wing Tea Party faction.
Indeed, it would appear that the Republican Party has lost control of its members who are inclined to go their own way. Over its history, America has been governed by either of the two main parties from the left or right of centre although crises such as the North-South civil war and phases of isolationism have occurred. There is also a libertarian streak among Republicans but such eccentricity is tolerated.
Hillary Clinton's decision to take the plunge despite losing out to Obama in the party nomination some six years ago reveals the size of her ambition and stamina to undertake a gruelling obstacle race full of challenges and name-calling. Even the Clinton Foundation, a charitable organisation founded by her husband, has become a subject of dispute about some of its tainted benefactors. And there will be many more controversies that will crop up.
Beyond the extravaganza of the presidential campaign, the question the world is seeking to find answers to is whether and how the United States is changing. There have always existed fringe and extreme elements propounding their crazy theories. And it has been an American tradition to sing praises to the God-like virtues of the free market. This streak is particularly strong among Republicans, with the Tea Party faction taking it to an extreme.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has traditionally fought for labour rights and has proclaimed a social conscience to a greater degree, perhaps best symbolised by President Obama's popularly-styled Obamacare. Nobody disputes the success of the American style of doing business and the incentives that exist for inventiveness. In fact, no country has made a greater contribution to the growth of modern technology and progress.
However, the more recent growth of extreme tendencies is symptomatic of a new ennui. The middle class is obviously dissatisfied with its stagnant economic condition even as the ranks of millionaires and billionaires multiply. Second, as a spate of recent incidents involving black men and white police officers reveals, race relations have again come to the fore, despite America's achievement in having its first black President.
For the better part, blacks and whites largely live their separate lives although, as I can attest from my first journey to the American Deep South nearly 60 years ago, there has been a sea-change in relations. The great American black migration from the South to the North of the country tells its own story. But many blacks remain poor and disadvantaged and a largely white police force in black majority areas poses a grave problem of provocation in the black perspective.
Mrs Clinton and her Republican opponent will face these problems as they negotiate the long journey to election day. She has certainly the experience and gumption to sustain her candidacy, but as is already clear from the initial shots aimed at her, her past will return to haunt her. At the very least, it promises to be an entertaining campaign.