One primary later

Before and during every presidential election in the US, every candidate talks about the need for change and how he (and now she) will bring it about. This is an entirely understandable vanity.

But the truth is that the really meaningful changes are brought about by the people, not by politicians in office who, perforce, can afford to rock the boat only minimally. Even when they do manage to bring about large-scale changes, it is only slowly. The people, on the other hand, can effect massive changes in a jiffy by voting for it.

Viewed from this perspective, the real question is: are white American males, even in the Democratic Party, ready for a change that will put either a woman or an American of African origin in the White House?

On the strength of the fund-raising activities so far, in what promises to be the first billion-dollar election in history, it would seem that the moneybags are quite happy with the prospect; so why shouldn't the rest be?

But Barack Obama is the only US Senator of (half) African origin just now, and one of only three to have been popularly elected so far. The women's count is better "" 16 Senators today, of which 12 are Democrats.

If those numbers are any indication, a woman stands a much better chance of being accepted than a Black, except that Clinton has come a poor third in the Iowa primary and has to deal perennially with questions concerning her candour, her real beliefs and policy preferences, and the degree of hostility that she arouses.

Obama, interestingly, has Hussein as his middle name, though that does not seem to have made a difference in Iowa. But for his skin colour and name, he is about as conventional as any American one gets, including encounters with alcohol, marijuana and cocaine, apparently to find out who he was.

He has been to Columbia and Harvard Law School and worked at a variety of jobs before his election as a Senator in 2004. He wants to end the Iraq War, increase energy independence, and provide universal health care "" all of which should make him very electable.

Still, atavistic prejudices tend not to show up till the moment of reckoning, when the button on the ballot box has to be pressed. So, one should not rule out John Edwards, who came second in Iowa, marginally ahead of Clinton.

Meanwhile, the Republicans in Iowa have plumped for Mike Huckabee, who describes himself as the only candidate in the field who is not a "wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street".

He has raised little money so far, runs a chaotic campaign, and gets by with his appeal to evangelical Christians (he is a former preacher) and by preaching a folksy populism that sometimes sounds positively liberal on economic issues.

If you are talking of change, that is certainly a huge change from George W Bush's presidency. But Huckabee, who is a successor to Bill Clinton as governor of Arkansas, and who comes from a very humble background, has his own share of Whitewater-type issues: the destruction of 83 office computers, done (it is alleged) to hide trails of forbidden activity.

He has also a strong record of pardoning criminals, including in one case someone who was set free and who promptly went out and committed violent crime again.

The pundits are already saying that his win in Iowa does not mean he will make it to the White House, but then the pundits had said that Clinton and Mitt Romney were the people to beat. One Iowa primary has changed all that.