Undoubtedly, citizens of countries all over the world with access to television must be increasingly fascinated by the ongoing process of selecting candidates from within the Democratic and Republican parties now seeking to be chosen as representatives of those parties for the presidency of the country in the election in November this year.
Their fascination will have been increased by the fact that unlike other presidential contests, it is likely that both sexes will be represented in November of this year, as Hillary Clinton, most likely to be the Democrats’ candidate, has now all but superseded the impediments traditionally assumed to have restricted the highest political job in the land to male contestants.
But in addition, the American voting population is now faced, on the Republican side, by a likely candidate, Donald Trump who, until now, had indicated no interest in representative politics, preferring to advance his reputation as a longstanding successful businessman. And interestingly, this billionaire businessman has chosen to use as one of his central weapons against his likely Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, the fact that she has had to extensively solicit campaign funds from big business interests, suggesting that she would, if successful as the President of the country, be bound and committed to those interests, to the detriment of the interests and concerns of the wider public.
What will be fascinating to citizens of most other countries is the actual process by which candidates are selected by the highly decentralized main parties of the country, with rules elaborated according to the perspectives and concerns of the parties in the various states (even though they carry the names Democratic and Republican), and not, therefore reflecting strict uniformity and or conformity to centralized rules emanating from a national centre. And clearly, this is not simply because the country has a federal political system, for it can be contrasted with federal systems, from Australia and Germany to Nigeria, which are generally subject to a nationally centralized system of rules, imposing a still high degree of uniformity on the electoral process.
What will, of course, also be fascinating is the fact that, at least from the Republican side, the chief contestant is an individual, Donald Trump, who has not hitherto indicated a deep interest in practical political representation, being up to now engrossed in the accumulation of capital which, of course, now gives him a certain autonomy, from the orthodox political parties, in defining his strategies in the preliminary contest of seeking the nomination of his declared party.
And interestingly in that regard, it is noticeable that a contrast is demonstrated on the Democratic side, where one of the chief contenders, Bernie Sanders, accuses the other, Hillary Clinton of having to depend extensively on drawing campaign funds from major companies and related business interests, this suggesting that she will be subject to the will of those contributors rather than the general population.
The campaign so far, with its focus on the extensive process for selecting a choice of party candidate, reflects a diversity of approaches, virtually state by state, rather than the highly centralised process reflected by parties in many other parts of the world. In the Commonwealth, for example, where party politics are also played within a federal system (whether Nigeria or Australia) and even in a country like Germany, also a federal system, parties have remained relatively highly centralized, bringing the contests for selection of a President, Prime Minister or Chancellor, within the control of the party apparatus.
But as is being presently indicated in the United States, it is the priorities indicated by the party groups in the separate states, reflecting the diversity of priorities within each state, and subsequently those of the parties (Republican or Democratic) in each state, that dominate the candidate selection that is made. This contrasts with the highly centralized elective system in political parties as we know them; whereas, as is quite visible presently in the United States, a central stamp on the process is not really defined, until the diversity of interests of the parties of the states of the federation is molded through a negotiated process eventually reflected nationally.
These particular characteristics of the American system are now being visibly demonstrated in the so-called primaries being held in the country. In a sense they permit a more extensive contest than we are familiar with, among candidates presenting themselves for election to the presidency. For they allow the electorate a three-phased process of selection of a potential president, the first initially within the parties in the separate states, the second within the national convention of each party which virtually ratifies the results of the first process; and thirdly, the centralized selection that will take place nationally in the election in November.
As is now clear, the leading candidate on the Republican side, Donald Trump is perceived as a novelty in the current process. For although he has been known as a highly successful businessman, he has not previously indicated a substantial interest in national affairs, and has not, up to recently, though known as a Republican, participated in that party’s processes. In that respect his entry is somewhat different from the selection, and advent into presidential politics, of the then General Dwight Eisenhower, who by his entry prior to the elections of 1952, had had an established reputation not only as a military actor, but as one involved in various aspects of international affairs during and after the Second World War.
What is now visible in the case of Trump, is that he seems to have been only recently interested in defining a national perspective. This has become visible as he has tried to test a populist approach to the campaign by essentially identifying particular grievances of various groups in the society, and then identifying solutions to them essentially by promising to cope with them in ways that can have a substantial effect on other countries.
It is, in that context, left to be seen whether his attacks on Muslims who have relatively recently entered the country, or his attacks on immigrants from neighbouring hemispheric countries, in particular Mexico, will have a persistent resonance with the voting population as the election approaches.
In contrast, the campaign line taken by the ostensibly main candidate on the Democratic side, Mrs Clinton, stands in a traditional mold, indicating her experience in international affairs, and her familiarity with national or domestic concerns by, inevitably, adverting to her familiarity with her husband’s challenges, as well as to a relatively short period spent in the United States Senate, indicating a familiarity with national and sectoral concerns. Yet, her apparently major opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, is prone to suggest that her tenure in these positions, particularly in the Senate, has been too limited to be proof of a successful tenure.
The pre-November election outcomes are being defined by the ability of both Trump and Clinton, in particular Trump, to eventually achieve the support of opponents with strength in particular areas of the country. The intensity of the campaign, up to now, suggests that the time for that has not yet come.
