With American presidential elections due in November this year, the preliminary stages of candidates facing what are described as primary elections within their own parties, are beginning to come to a climax, as the various pretenders to the throne are winnowed out, or voluntarily leave the race. And consequently, observers are beginning to get a preliminary glance at which of the present contenders are likely to be selected as representatives of the Democrats and the Republicans when their conventions are held mid-July
Clearly, a greater degree of stability, in terms of choice of a candidate, is being demonstrated by the Democrats rather than within the Republican party. Among the Democrats the field has rapidly narrowed to two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, both of whom can be said to be leaning towards a more liberal than conservative stance in Democratic party terms. Sanders, Senator from the relatively small state of Vermont, is a fresher face in terms of having visibility at the level of national politics, even though he is on his second six-year term in the Senate.
Of course, although Hillary Clinton also spent two terms in that forum, she has the advantage of a wider national visibility not only as an obviously politically-interested wife of former two-term president Bill Clinton, and having, as it were, lived in the political environment of the White House; but also, more importantly, of having served a term as President Obama’s first Secretary of State. And it will be noticeable that Obama has seemed to recently bolster his support for her by indicating that in his view, the accusations against her of possibly damaging the country’s security do not seem to be substantial.
In direct campaigning terms therefore, Clinton seems to also have the advantage of more widespread political visibility. From that standpoint she does not seem unwilling to let Sanders continue to describe himself as “socialist” (an almost bad political word in the wider American environment), his campaign seeming to stress the need for programmes of mass social welfare which are not often heard in the American environment.
From the perspective of a greater degree of internal party competitiveness as a prelude to the actual selection of a candidate, the Republican party obviously presents itself as more fascinating. It presents a picture of ideological competitiveness among the candidates, something which if present at all in American politics, has traditionally been more likely to be visible among the Democrats.
The key ideological provocateur, as is now quite obvious, has been the billionaire businessman Donald Trump,, entering the field with no previous political experience at either the state or national levels, but presenting himself as having the specific, in his view positive, experience of having been notably experienced in national private business affairs; as well as having a similar grounding in the sphere of international business, necessarily involving interaction with major political figures.
Trump has used these apparent qualifications to minimise the efforts of other Republican challengers, and in a sense has succeeded in terms of winnowing down the interventions of other early candidates with Senatorial experience. For the field would seem to have narrowed down, leaving as his main substantial opponent Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a first term member of the Senate, as the efforts of other opponents seem to have been minimised by his unorthodox approach to campaigning, not to speak, as well as the apparent challenge of his financial resources vis-à-vis their own.
The reduction of the Republican field, however, has seemed to now throw the spotlight on what many observers deem to be Trump’s unorthodox approach to campaigning, which suggests, among other things, that particularly in the arena of international affairs, he lacks sensitivity to the concerns of other countries and their leaderships; and also an understanding that, perhaps unlike in the spheres of the business world, the sensitivities not only of foreign political leaders, but also of their nationals, need to be recognized.
This has been perhaps most notable in his announcements of his potential policies towards the United States’s immediate neighbours, in particular Mexico, where, it would appear, such policies would normally be denounced as political buffoonery, were it not that they are emanating from the most powerful country in the world.
Yet, there has been a suggestion that, at least initially, the American electorate, or at least a substantial part of it, has felt that Trump’s statements and allegedly intended policies, have been reflecting some of their own sentiments that suggest that the United States is being taken advantage of by other countries, particularly in terms the expenditure of its resources, as well in terms of what are deemed to be the negative impact of foreign immigration.
Yet from a wider perspective, it is probably valid to say that there has developed, in the electorate, a certain sensitivity to the use of American resources beyond the country’s own shores. In some respects, this was reflected in the campaign of Barack Obama, who in his own campaign, intimated that the period of American, apparently beneficial, interventionism was over. Obama has himself continued to say that his hand was almost forced by the NATO countries’ intervention in Libya for the purpose of removing Muammar Gaddafi. And he has tended to remind the electorate that he was not in favour of the intervention by President George W Bush in Iraq, for the purpose of getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
That sentiment is likely, in terms of American foreign policy, to prevail. For indications are, that that on the Democratic side, neither of the two main candidates, Sanders and Clinton, seem inclined to focus on external affairs involving the use of American force. For they too, sense that from the perspective of the electorate, there seems to be an inclination to focus on getting matters, in particular economic matters, right at home.
