Barack and Huckabee ride on wish for change

The Telegraph ^ | January 7, 2008 | John O'Sullivan

[rightwingintelligentsia]

"Change" is the most protean of political slogans. Everyone claims to favour it - everyone, including all of America's presidential contenders - but it is really a string of empty boxes that the winners get to open and fill.

New Hampshire stampede sets Obama up for second victory Iowa's caucus results began to fill the first two boxes with the new themes of post-Bush politics. In the first upset, Barack Obama overtook Hillary Clinton as the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination with a decisive 38-29 per cent victory. He immediately interpreted "change" to mean that America had finally embraced a new politics of post-racism that would benefit minority Americans.

In the second upset, Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who had emerged from a crowded field of also-rans to defeat better-known and better-funded candidates, promptly interpreted "change" to mean that America had embraced a new politics of social inclusion for struggling American workers.

If Iowa's winners go on to gain their party nominations, then the November election could well become a battle between two politicians saying much the same thing - national unity, social inclusion - but not quite the same thing.

Mr Huckabee's struggling Americans include many black and minority citizens but also poorer whites, like his own family and even some firmly middle-class people hit hard by high college fees or medical bills. His politics is designed to alleviate middle-class anxieties as much as to relieve poverty. Likewise, many likely beneficiaries of Mr Obama's post-racist politics are not poor at all but belong to the growing class of minority professionals who see a black president as a catalyst to remove the few remaining race barriers.