Peeping Tom - Obama - Would there be significant change ?

Peeping Tom – Obama – Would there be significant change ?

Jun 12, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

This column did not, until now, comment on the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination because quite honestly neither of the two top candidates I believe would, if elected to office, lead to any change in American foreign policy towards the poor countries of the world.
Obviously the success of Barack Obama, surprised me as it did most analysts. Obama owes his success I believe not to any new awakening or change in the attitude of Americans but mainly because his opponent, Hillary Clinton, simply was not charismatic enough.

She was unappealing and flat in her campaign and never looked presidential, a situation which confounded her chances of winning the Democratic nomination, more especially since she ran on the basis that she embodied the type of leadership that American needed.
The Democratic super delegates by gifting to Barack Obama the nomination decided that Obama was the one who they thought was better suited, even though Hillary took the majority of the larger States and from all accounts won the popular vote.
Obama obviously created greater excitement and enthusiasm in his campaign, something that the American public is craving for after the dullness and sterility of the Bush administration.
The two issues that were bound to take centre stage during the run-offs between Barack and Hillary were that of race and gender. We really need to analyse just what sort of influence each played in the Democratic primaries.
Years ago, there was an American Democratic candidate named Walter Mondale. He created history by choosing as his Vice Presidential candidate a woman named Geraldine Ferraro. It seemed a political masterstroke, a move that would have resulted in the first female Vice President in American history.
Mondale and Ferraro went on to lose the Presidential elections.

It seemed then as it seems now that gender is not a great drawing card when it comes to choosing either a Presidential candidate or a President. It may be difficult to test through an opinion poll whether the American people feel that the position of President is best suited to a man rather than a woman, but that is something that really needs to be determined because women have not done well in the past when it came to winning the elections and now when it comes to winning the Democratic Presidential nomination.
All of that is important but at the stage of mere academic importance. The Democrats have made their choice. They are going with Obama. I would be very surprised if having come so far he does not go all the way, but we must never underrate the power of the Republicans.
For me whether it is Obama or Mc Cain come November really does not matter. I really hold little hope for a changed world order under a new American President. There are others however who feel that because Obama is Black that he may be more sympathetic to the non-White world.
Well, we heard this before when Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State. Neither of these two appointments however has ever made much of difference to the poor countries of the world. Both Powell and Rice proved that they were “establishment” people. And even in America the elevation of Blacks to such top posts in the government has not improved the situation of Blacks in America.
I hold no such illusions that things will be different under Barack as President. Obama may be Black but his politics is White. No sooner had he sewn up the Democratic party nomination, he issued a statement playing to the Jewish lobby.
If the American people choose Obama as their next President, it would I believe represent a significant and historical political decision.

It would be an act of political healing and redemption that the American nation which played its role in the enslavement of Blacks could at the turn of the twenty-first century choose a Black man as their President. This is something that would I believe have a serious impact on the improvement of race relations in that country.
Whether in the case of Obama it will result in a better deal for poor countries, in the ending of the Cuban embargo, in guaranteeing a viable Palestinian State and an end to the old politics is another issue. I doubt whether in the success of Barack Obama we would have reached that stage as yet.

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