Because She’s Earned It

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Ireland Calling with John Spain

Because She’s Earned It

February 14, 2008

by John Spain

NEVER before has an American presidential race captured the interest of people in Ireland the way this one has. It’s turned the Irish into a nation of U.S. news junkies. Everyone you meet here these days — even an auld fella I met in the pub last weekend — is an expert on the intricacies of the American primaries.

The race is getting extensive coverage on the terrestrial channels, on RTE, BBC and ITV. But that’s not enough for the real addicts here who follow the nightly news from America on cable or satellite channels.

We can see the evening news live from NBC or CBS or whatever American station at around midnight Irish time. So people are glued to their TVs watching the battle between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the regeneration of the old warrior Senator John McCain.

For obvious reasons, there is a good deal of support for Clinton here. But there is also a strong and admiring interest in Obama. And there are those who think that while both of them are great candidates, McCain is the seasoned leader that America needs to get it through these troubled times at home and abroad.

If you’re a Democrat, of course, it’s an embarrassment of riches. You wait for decades for either a woman or a black man to emerge as a serious presidential candidate — and then both come along at the same time. The two of them are supremely gifted and committed politicians who would do America proud.

So I will be happy whichever of them wins. And to tell the truth, since I am becoming a grumpy old man and getting more conservative as I get older, I won’t be upset either if McCain makes it. In that I am probably typical of many people here who regard the three of them as worthy candidates.

But as I said already, Clinton probably has the support of most people in Ireland, and I include myself in that.

It’s not because of the debt we owe her and Bill for their involvement in the North, although that alone deserves some payback. Where I’m concerned it’s more straightforward.

I think she has earned it. And I think the time is right for her, not because she’s a woman but because she’s the person she is.

Electing a woman president should be no big deal for Americans. We’re on our second female president in Ireland. Britain, Israel and India (among other countries) have all had women leaders, and Germany currently has one. So for the U.S. it’s more a case of catch-up than break through.

Clinton should get it not because she’s a woman but because she has earned it. Her public service record goes right back to her student days. She has huge experience from her time in the White House with Bill where, in spite of the bimbo eruptions, she was clearly an equal partner and the adviser he relied on most.

In that, she has already broken the mould. She was no Jackie Kennedy choosing dinner settings. More than any other first lady, all the way back to and including Eleanor Roosevelt, she was involved.

Those who try to dismiss this as irrelevant are mistaken. She has unbeatable experience and she is ready to go, as she says, from Day One.

What you see with Clinton is what you get, a middle-aged woman who has been through the mill. I like that.

She is tough because of what she has been through, she has seen enough not to panic when things get rough, yet she retains a sensitivity that you don’t see in the other candidates.

And she brains to burn. She could be every bit as tough as McCain, but she also has the intellectual firepower necessary to grapple with the complexities of foreign policy and domestic economics.

McCain’s heart may be in the right place, but could he deal with the convoluted world out there any better than George W.? The mastery of detail that Clinton has (and which Bill also had) comes from hard work, from putting in long hours.

And she has put in the hours, over many years. Which is why I say she has earned it.

There is another reason. For her, at her age, the time is right.

Obama can wait for another eight years and still be young enough, and waiting would probably be good for him, because in spite of all the posturing it’s clear to me he is far from ready.

Clinton can’t wait. It’s now or never for her. And she has earned her chance.

What you see is what you get with Clinton. But I don’t get the same feeling at all with Obama.

I have watched him closely doing his charismatic thing on TV and I see a level of control and distance in his persona that bothers me. Behind all that charisma, he’s almost robotic at times.

The hysteria around him also bothers me, especially since so much of it seems to be coming from the students and younger voters who have yet to achieve the balance that comes with a little maturity. And am I wrong in thinking that a lot of them are nice white collar kids, whereas a lot of Clinton’s support comes from the blue collar people who instinctively know who they can trust?

Obama’s attempts to gloss over his lack of experience bothers me as well. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, but he can’t own up.

The facts are that he spent eight years in the Illinois legislature before being elected to the Senate in 2004. That’s just three and a bit years ago.

So when he goes on about needing to “change” Washington, it’s hard for me to believe that he can know what he’s talking about. And if he’s blustering on that, what other parts of his “change” agenda is he unqualified to talk about?

But it’s not just that or the celebrities who surround him or the questionable intervention of Senator Ted Kennedy that bothers me, although all those factors make me uneasy. There is something else that bothers me about him.

That something is the way he is using race to win support among African Americans, as though the black side of who he is is far more important than the white side. At least that’s the way it looks to us watching on TV on this side of the Atlantic.

It pays to read his biography. The facts are that his white American mother met his African father when both were students at the University of Hawaii. His father effectively abandoned them when Obama was a toddler and he was taken from Hawaii to Indonesia by his mother when she married again.

He went to school in Jakarta from the age of about six to 10. But his mother wasn’t happy with his progress and she then sent him back to Honolulu to stay with his maternal grandparents so he could go to an American school. So it would be fair to say that he became who he is today mainly because of the hard work and vision of his white mother and his white maternal grandparents.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but somehow I think that has got buried in the hype about about him becoming the first black president.

I’m also bothered about his oratory, which has taken on the repetitive cadences of a black preacher and leader like Martin Luther King. Where did that come from? Is it something real from his background or is it something manufactured, something adopted for effect?

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying Obama is a phony. But I am saying that he is not real in the way that Clinton is real.

With her, what you see is what you get, even if it’s not always perfect. There’s an aura of perfection around Obama that I don’t trust.

He is a very clever and charismatic young man who, as one commentator put it, “is tapping into the spiritual hunger and emotional yearning of a nation adrift.” But he is doing that by promising “change” and offering hope that is vague enough to avoid him ever having to be too specific.

The problem with life is that it gets specific all the time, especially if you are president of the U.S. Obama could be a great president some day. But he has time on his side and he needs to live a little and experience a bit more before he will be ready. He needs to be more ordinary and less charismatic, if you know what I mean.

In the meantime, fortunately for America, there is someone there who has lived enough and experienced enough to be ready, someone who is ordinary and exceptional at the same time. Your time has come, Hillary.

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