The Presidential Race Through Foreign Eyes

How is the presidential race playing in foreign media?

Tim Hames writes, in the Times of London, that the Republicans are not in "freefall" and their situation is nowhere near as dire as it has been reported to be.

Hames points out that none of the candidates for the GOP nomination has been anointed as "Bush's candidate," which is beneficial to the eventual nominee. Whoever wins the nomination can be the "candidate of change" for the Republicans.

And, with its 25% approval rating, the Democrat-controlled Congress is less popular than President Bush. "A smart Republican will run against Capitol Hill this year," Hames says.

Hames seems to present this notion as if it were a radical concept. But aren't most of the Republican candidates already doing that?

Hames also states that the leading Democratic contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have their own problems in connecting with the electorate at large.

Clinton, he says, "is a highly polarising figure who struggles to persuade half of Americans ... that they would back her."

Obama, Hames writes, "is far less loathed, but he has a record and a rhetoric that is much more liberal than the typical U.S. voter. He is eminently beatable -- but only by a moderate Republican with an established reputation who commands respect beyond the party faithful."

Hames concludes that "For the Republicans ... it has become ... Senator McCain or bust. He could yet be their salvation. But he must start in New Hampshire ... by defeating [Mitt] Romney and slaughtering [Rudy] Giuliani."

Andrew Sullivan writes, in The Australian, that Obama is "a potential liberal version of Ronald Reagan" who may be able to "do for the Democrats what Reagan did for the Republicans" in the 1980s.

Sullivan also mentions the impact of the youth vote -- not ordinarily a high number in caucuses and primaries but a strong driving force in Obama's victory in Iowa. He recalls that Reagan, the nation's oldest elected president, was popular among young people, just as Obama is today -- although the age difference is not nearly as great. Obama is 46 years old, the same age Bill Clinton was when he was elected president.

On the Republican side, Sullivan says, it would be "very foolish to underestimate" Mike Huckabee, even if he continues to seem an unlikely nominee.

"In the wreckage of the post-Bush Republican Party," Sullivan writes, "Huckabee is the most talented natural politician. And he has taken Bushism to its logical conclusion."

Sullivan goes on to say, "Even if Huckabee falters this time around, he represents a viable future for the Republicans, albeit a very different one from the past. Huckabee represents the consolidation of the Republicans as a southern, religious, working-class party.

"If he wins the nomination, he could push a lot of economic conservatives into the Democratic camp, lose badly and yet reshape his party: a reverse Barry Goldwater, turning Republicanism into something closer to religious populism than Yankee conservatism."

I'm not sure either side is willing to settle for a Goldwater-like figure who sets the stage for future victories while losing badly this time.

A little closer to home, L. Ian MacDonald writes, in the Montreal Gazette, that there is "very little time for Hillary Clinton to erect a flood wall against the surging Barack Obama."

MacDonald makes an interesting point about Obama as the first "major" black candidate for president, even though Jesse Jackson made two runs for the nomination in the 1980s.

And, for that matter, New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm made a symbolic run for the White House in 1972. No other black woman, to my knowledge, ever ran for a major party's presidential nomination.

MacDonald writes, "Jackson was a candidate of grievance. Obama is a messenger of hope. He has a compelling story line, draws big crowds, and he has the oratorical skills to bring them to their feet."

As many observers, foreign and domestic, have pointed out in their own manners, Clinton is trying to have it both ways -- the candidate of both experience and change.

That's a tricky tightrope to walk.

It may be even trickier if, as the Toronto Star reports to its readers, "Obama fever grips New Hampshire."