Across the pond

I reached my London flat on Saturday evening just in time to get a ringside seat for Hillary Clinton’s much advertised and much delayed pull out speech. I missed the 5 PM deadline because we hit heavy traffic but then so did Hillary on the other side of the pond. So she was just starting up as i settled into my arm chair.

She certainly laid in on with a trowel. ‘Barack Obama has lived the American dream’, ‘want you to work as hard for Obama as you have worked for me’, ‘my commitment to him is unyielding’, ‘today our paths have merged’, ‘restore our standing in the world’, ‘Obama has grace and grit’. And then lots of ‘Together we will work for…’, starting with an America in which ‘no child, man or woman will be without health insurance’.

‘Together Obama and I have achieved milestones’, ‘There are no acceptable prejudicies in the 21st century’, ‘An African American or a woman can be President’, ‘This is a time to take back our country’.

It was, in my view, quite the best speech I have heard from Hillary Clinton, or read, in the whole sixteen month campaign. She rose to the level of eloquence that Obama has shown. And she was still true to herself. Now that is an irony. Her best speech the one which conceded defeat. This time she did not shed a tear, she said defiantly, in the part of the speech when she disclosed her own feelings, ‘Never listen to anyone who says you can’t go on.’ And over the last few weeks many of her closest advisers, as well as much of the world media, have been telling her not to go on.

I sat down immediately and wrote the first draft of this articile with the headline I use now. The speech had restored my faith in America. Hillary was rising above her own personal ambitions, and throwing her weight behind the values she has been fighting for. And, since I started commenting on this US election last autumn, what has struck me is how close her values are to those of Obama.

So my opening paragraph in the Saturday night draft, went on to say, that my comitment was not to all Americans, but to the 18 million Americans who have voted for Hillary in the primary and the 18 million Americans who have voted for Obama. This particular campaign has been electriying and both Democratic candidates have reached people not usually engaged in politics and got enthusiastic support. A big contrast to the Republicans, who settled early for the candidate the Party was not keen no John McCain, because neither of their front runners found any favour with the electorate.

But I did not post my article on Saturday night, because one thing niggled me.

Hillary’s speech sounded like she was speaking as the Vice Presidential candidate. Which was a possibility I was keen on back in February but I have since gone on record in this blog, as saying I am not in favour of that way of healing the divisions in the Democratic Party which have emerged.

And I was bugged by the fact that I did not know what Obama and Hillary Clinton said to each other in their hour long meeting last Thursday night. He might even have told her that he was happy to have her as VP.

So I decided to wait until Sunday, when the journalists on the other side of the pond would have had a chance to find out what happend at that meeting and tell their readers.

It is now Monday evening. And nothing has yet come out about what the two Democratic candidates said to each other last Thursday. So it is 99 per cent certain that no promises were made on either side (unlike Blair and Brown Islington’s Granita restaurant.. But equally it is clear that the meeting was amicable and these two ambitious and able politicians are ready to work together to win the Presidency for the Democrats.

To be continued. After dinner or after breakfast tomorrow.

……not all Americans but the 18 million Americans who have voted in recent months for Hillary Clinton and the 18 million voters who during the same period have voted for Barrack Obama.

Because I am British I am still turned off by the screams of adulation I hear on my television set from their supporters. But I also warm to those supporters who are screaming because they absoloutedly want to make a better America. They scream with the same spirit which led the Pilgrim Fathers to said away from the tyrannical regime of Britain’s King George III whom historry has decided was not only a tyrant. He was mad. In total that amounts to 36 million Americans who are voicing values which I believe in.

Contrast the McCain campaign. He is not the candidate the Republicans wanted. He is not liked, to put it mildly by the Bush crowd. He is widely distrusted by them because his social views are much more liberal. But they are prepared to stomach him because he wants to be the toughie who uses America’s might to wage war against the most media prominent threat to America’s power.

McCain’s campaign has not won any such entusiastic support from the electorate. Noboday screams for Jonh McCain, but Republican voters have decided he is a less worse bet, than evanelical born again Bushites or rich Mormans, with a rational agenda, like George Romney.

So the Democrats ouugt to win the 2008 election by a landslide. They won’t because from now on, they will have to contend with the forces of American consumer capitalism, which is a model adopted, not only by Americans but even many of the Eurapeans and even the Chinese. And those forces are very powerful.

And what is clear from both the Obaaa and the Clinton capaigns is that neither of them want America to go on being the bully boy who determines the fate of the world. They want America to address its own inequalitise, which would have disgusted the Pilgim Fathers.

No journalist has yet told me what Barack said to Hillary on Thursday night.

But today they are both fighting on the same side. That is why 36 milliions of Americans have supported them enthusiastically.

Today Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have both declared they are going to act together to defeat the Republicans. The media commentators are saying that it is by no means certain they will win.

They are right because both Obama and Clinton are in polical terms, left of centre. So no multi-natianal bosses, takiny home there telephone number salaries, are going to vote for them.

Obama has said that he wants a ‘special relationship’ with Britain. I hope he sticks to this, but not to the extent of cosying with Gordon Brown who, though currently Prime Minister, does not represent the views of Brits. Even those, like me, who have admired many of the things he has done, are urging him to resigen and go and look after his garden.Is power he has outdone Blair in cow-towing to the big company bosses. He is justiiedly unpopopular. And he should make way to a new leader if Labour is going to have a hope of winning the next British election.

Ich bin ein American – Part one

I reached my London flat on Saturday evening just in time to get a ringside seat for Hillary Clinton’s much advertised and much delayed pull out speech. I missed the 5 PM deadline because we hit heavy traffic but then so did Hillary on the other side of the pond. So she was just starting up as i settled into my arm chair.

She certainly laid in on with a trowel. ‘Barack Obama has lived the American dream’, ‘want you to work as hard for Obama as you have worked for me’, ‘my commitment to him is unyielding’, ‘today our paths have merged’, ‘restore our standing in the world’, ‘Obama has grace and grit’. And then lots of ‘Together we will work for…’, starting with an America in which ‘no child, man or woman will be without health insurance’.

‘Together Obama and I have achieved milestones’, ‘There are no acceptable prejudicies in the 21st century’, ‘An African American or a woman can be President’, ‘This is a time to take back our country’.

It was, in my view, quite the best speech I have heard from Hillary Clinton, or read, in the whole sixteen month campaign. She rose to the level of eloquence that Obama has shown. And she was still true to herself. Now that is an irony. Her best speech the one which conceded defeat. This time she did not shed a tear, she said defiantly, in the part of the speech when she disclosed her own feelings, ‘Never listen to anyone who says you can’t go on.’ And over the last few weeks many of her closest advisers, as well as much of the world media, have been telling her not to go on.

I sat down immediately and wrote the first draft of this articile with the headline I use now. The speech had restored my faith in America. Hillary was rising above her own personal ambitions, and throwing her weight behind the values she has been fighting for. And, since I started commenting on this US election last autumn, what has struck me is how close her values are to those of Obama.

So my opening paragraph in the Saturday night draft, went on to say, that my comitment was not to all Americans, but to the 18 million Americans who have voted for Hillary in the primary and the 18 million Americans who have voted for Obama. This particular campaign has been electriying and both Democratic candidates have reached people not usually engaged in politics and got enthusiastic support. A big contrast to the Republicans, who settled early for the candidate the Party was not keen no John McCain, because neither of their front runners found any favour with the electorate.

But I did not post my article on Saturday night, because one thing niggled me.

Hillary’s speech sounded like she was speaking as the Vice Presidential candidate. Which was a possibility I was keen on back in February but I have since gone on record in this blog, as saying I am not in favour of that way of healing the divisions in the Democratic Party which have emerged.

And I was bugged by the fact that I did not know what Obama and Hillary Clinton said to each other in their hour long meeting last Thursday night. He might even have told her that he was happy to have her as VP.

So I decided to wait until Sunday, when the journalists on the other side of the pond would have had a chance to find out what happend at that meeting and tell their readers.

It is now Monday evening. And nothing has yet come out about what the two Democratic candidates said to each other last Thursday. So it is 99 per cent certain that no promises were made on either side (unlike Blair and Brown Islington’s Granita restaurant.. But equally it is clear that the meeting was amicable and these two ambitious and able politicians are ready to work together to win the Presidency for the Democrats.

To be continued. After dinner or after breakfast tomorrow.