They're off! The great American quadrennial presidential sweepstakes began last week with state-level caucuses of both Democratic and Republican parties in Iowa. Though meant to elect the state's representatives to the national conventions of the parties later in the summer which nominate their presidential candidates, the caucuses in effect are primary elections, with delegates virtually unknown. New Hampshire holds its primary elections today.
These small states together have 1.5 per cent of the United States' population and six out of the 435 members in the House of Representatives. Heavily snow-bound in the winter, they enjoy their moments in the sunshine of electoral politics because of their early-bird status. Even though the results of these contests are not good predictors of the outcome of the November elections, such is their power that poor performers in them can be certain of an early end to their electoral aspirations. Since 1972, only one candidate who did not finish in the top three in either of these states went on to win the party nomination. Bill Clinton in 1992 came in fourth in Iowa. He prevailed in New Hampshire and called himself "the come-back kid." Hilary Clinton lost Iowa to Barack Obama in 2008 but won New Hampshire and stayed on to fight for the nomination till the end. That is how important these otherwise tiny straws in the wind are in the world's second largest democracy.
So, does last week's Iowa win - by a hairbreadth (by 0.2 percentage points) - for Ms Clinton and her expected drubbing this week in New Hampshire against the once-independent maverick Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (she trails him by 30 percentage points in polls) have any larger significance? Too soon to tell, but the invincible aura the former First Lady and Secretary of State enjoyed earlier has already faded. She is now neck and neck against Mr Sanders in most national polls for the Democratic nomination. Some polls for the presidency pitting her against the Republican front-runner, the self-made billionaire bombast Donald Trump, show her on the losing side. Mr Trump also came in for some hard knocks in Iowa as he lost there to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and stayed barely ahead of the Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
The Republican field is crowded at present as it was in 2012, with nine active candidates. Three withdrew after Iowa and a dozen others who had figured earlier (including Bobby Jindal, the Indian-origin former governor of Louisiana) never entered primaries. Most recent Republican contests were dominated by middle-of-the-road candidates. That is unlikely to happen this time. All the leading candidates are conservatives. They want to take America "back," presumably from that upstart carpetbagger Mr Obama. Their far right rhetoric may appeal to Middle America, but sends shivers down the spine of the rest of the world. The worst example, of course, is Mr Trump, whose eccentric positions include banning Muslims from entering the United States. He says he likes Russian President Vladimir Putin and could do business with him, but Mr Trump, unlike any previous presidential candidate, has never held an elective office or served in the military.
The Democrats, too, are not in a happy place. Ms Clinton, a shoo-in until six months ago for not just the party nomination but also the presidency, is finding it tough-going. Mr Sanders' sincerity and outsider image have gained his campaign much traction. His campaign has attracted the same kind of attention and volunteers that marked the efforts of peace candidates Senators Eugene McCarthy (1968) and George McGovern (1972). Ms Clinton is now the establishment candidate. Her impressive record also comes with some unwanted dirty laundry not just from her stints in the Senate and the State Department, but also from the Clinton White House. The prospect of being served Mr Clinton's leftovers refried twice is not exactly appetising.
The billionaire two-term former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, whose positions are close to the Democratic mainstream, is keenly watching the situation. He has a core staff and $1 billion war chest in place to launch his third party candidacy should Ms Clinton not last the distance to November and Mr Trump prevail among the Republicans. The chances of this actually materialising appear slim at the moment.
I have keenly followed American politics in general and presidential elections in particular since the Kennedy era, albeit from a distance for most of the time. The high point of my interest was 2008 (as it was for many others), with Mr Obama's magnificent, transformative campaign and win.
Unfortunately, it has been all downhill since then. The increasingly rightward and isolationist drift, the emergence of the Tea Party lunatics, the none-too-subtle racism responsible for targetting President Obama, his own distancing, at times bordering on aloofness, and the verbal calisthenics of the Clintons have all contributed to this. It has now reached the rock-bottom, with the weird Trumping of politics.
A concluding, possibly idle, speculation: What would have been an Indophile American observer's reaction to the Indian general election campaign in early 2014?
The writer taught at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and helped set up Institute of Rural Management,Anand
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
