The agony of choice is everywhere, but over different things. Right now in Nigeria, the agony is over bread and butter, if not life and death, choices. In the face of irregular salary payments, inadequate power supply, and rising costs, the people have to decide on what food to buy and where; how many meals per day (one, two, or three); and how much petrol to buy and from where (petrol station or street corner vendor) to power their okada, car, or power generator.
In America, these choices are largely settled. If they have to make choices along these lines at all, they will be over what variety of food to buy, how much to eat, and how far and fast to drive (after all, there are supermarkets, restaurant chains, and oozing petrol pumps everywhere). Nevertheless, they have their own agony of choice. Right now, it is over the choice of presidential candidate in the ongoing primaries in preparation for the November 8, 2016, general election. As a diversion from their own agony, Nigerians are invited to briefly read about this American dilemma. Nigerian leaders in particular are enjoined to learn from it.
In two previous articles (“Will Donald Trump become America’s 45th President?”, The PUNCH, March 8, 2016, and “American presidential politics: Can Trump be dumped?”, The PUNCH, March 22, 2016), I outlined the dilemma facing members of the Republican Party in the choice between the frontrunner, Donald Trump, and the other candidates in the race. In the Republican race, the party establishment views the frontrunner as a political apostate and has been working very hard to derail his march towards the nomination. Trump himself has been running as an anti-establishment outsider, galvanising the support of anti-establishment voters, especially non-college graduates and angry Whites.
The reverse is the case with the Democratic Party, where the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, at 68, is the establishment candidate and has been running as such. Hillary, as she is popularly called (to distinguish her from her husband, Bill Clinton), clearly earned her current status in the Democratic Party. Trained as a lawyer from Yale University Law School, she had a promising legal career before veering into politics. At various times, she was a law professor, a partner in the Rose Law Firm, and a member of the impeachment inquiry staff during the Watergate scandal.
She began her political journey when her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas, where she was the First Lady for 12 years. She subsequently became the First Lady of the United States for eight years; Senator, representing the State of New York, for eight years; and the US Secretary of State for four years. She ran for President in 2008 but lost the long-drawn race for the nomination to President Barack Obama.
Hillary has worked tirelessly throughout her adult life on issues pertaining to civil rights, women, and children. She championed health care reforms as the First Lady and the strategy of “smart power” as the Secretary of State, that is, the combination of “hard” (military) power and “soft” power, focusing on the diplomatic use of institutions, partnerships, and alliances in extending American influence across the globe. This political trajectory may have led to the unspoken assumption within the party that it is her turn to run for the Presidency this time round.
Until Bernie Sanders, at 74, came along, it was as if Hillary already had the nomination locked up. This is evident in the large number of endorsements by super delegates (Democratic Party leaders and elected officials); prominent individuals and organisations; and former Heads of State from across the world. However, as the primary battle moved from the more conservative southern states to the more liberal Western states, it became clearer and clearer that Sanders is no fluke.
A University of Chicago graduate, Sanders began his political career as the Mayor of Burlington, Vermont’s most populous city, from 1981 to 1989. He was elected to Congress in 1990 and served as a Member of the House of Representatives for 16 years, following which he was elected to the Senate in 2006. This is his 10th year in the Senate and his 34th year in elective office.
Although he mostly caucused with Democrats, Sanders was the longest-serving Independent in the US congressional history until he formally joined the Democratic Party in 2015 as he prepared to run for the Presidency. A self-styled Democratic Socialist, his unique attribute is the reputation he built for himself as a progressive voice on social, financial, corporate, and defence issues. No wonder he is an outspoken advocate of civil liberties, civil rights, and privacy rights.
The distinction between Hillary and Sanders is rooted in differences in their political trajectories. Hillary began her foray into politics within the establishment, but did not hold elective office until 2001, whereas Sanders began his outside the establishment circles. He was first elected into office as an Independent in 1981 and has continuously held elective office for 34 years. Although they both have a claim to progressivism, they approach certain key issues quite differently.
Hillary is more centrist, while Sanders is more leftist. Accordingly, they differ, even if slightly at times, on the approach to a number of issues, including trade, defence, health care, and education. Hillary wants to improve on Obamacre, while Sanders wants full government-sponsored universal healthcare. Similarly, Sanders wants free education at all levels, while Hillary supports a modified loan system that would make university education affordable. Hillary supported the Iraq war, while Sanders opposed it, although both support limitations to defence spending.
Sanders has successfully crystallised these differences into a claim to more progressive credentials and a call for a revolution, a call to which his supporters have been responding with their votes. His supporters are mostly young, under 45, progressive, and somewhat anti-establishment, like Trump’s supporters, while Hillary’s are older and more conservative, reflecting her centrist leaning.
Nevertheless, Hillary continues to lead in the delegates count. At 1,712 delegates to date, she is 671 short of the 2, 383 needed for the nomination. Sanders, on the other hand, currently has 1,011 delegates, meaning that he still needs as many as 1,372 delegates to win the nomination. That’s why many observers feel that the primaries and caucuses in eight states this month, beginning with Wisconsin today, may be decisive. Altogether, there are as many as 867 delegates in these states, including 210 in Pennsylvania and 291 in New York.
True, a number of these states have a progressive bent, which may give Sanders some advantage, he may not be able to overtake Hillary down the stretch, particularly because delegates are distributed proportionally in the Democratic primaries. Nevertheless, Hillary still has to be careful to avoid a blowout in big delegate-rich states, such as Pennsylvania, New York, and, especially California, with a whopping 546 delegates.
This can only translate to vigorous campaigns on both sides as they hammer on each other’s negatives. Hillary must be careful as she apparently has more negatives to defend, especially her role in two controversial matters, namely, the embassy deaths in Benghazi, Libya, and the storage of emails on her personal server, both while she was Secretary of State. No investigation so far has indicted her, or even found her culpable. Indeed, similar events happened under the watch of her predecessors in office, without incurring any investigations at all. But Republicans have succeeded in taking so much mileage on both issues as to have planted the seed of untrustworthiness in many a voter’s mind.
Hillary’s doggedness and sincerity of purpose should carry her through. The best that the Democratic establishment can do is wish her well and watch events as they unfold as in 2008 during her struggle with Obama for the nomination.
PUNCH
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