Primary school

Now that Barack Obama has finally triumphed, what have we learned from the US primaries?
June 28, 2008

Do British readers find the US primary system confusing? If so, they're in good company. Most Americans don't get it either. Far from being constitutionally mandated, it is a relatively recent phenomenon, a product of the progressive movement of the early 20th century. The individual states have established their own procedures, which accounts for the grab bag of primaries and caucuses and the variety of arcane procedures with which the candidates (and newsreaders) have had to contend.

Initially, primaries were purely advisory, and party elders often ignored the results. The first election cycle where they became formally binding was as recent as 1960, when John F Kennedy felt obliged to show the political bosses a Catholic could win Protestant votes.

The American presidency is a peculiar office, not solely governmental, but not primarily ceremonial. The best description might be "tribal." Presidents formulate policy, but they also occupy unique psychic space in the minds of most Americans. They are the country's public face—and it's desirable they seem plausible in that role. So when casting your primary vote, you often heed the signals that bypass your intellect en route to the limbic system.

This cycle, the Republican candidates didn't engage anyone's limbic system. It was generally dismissed as a mediocre field. The initial frontrunner, John McCain, seemed so shopworn that party activists anointed virtually everyone else in the race—Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney and Thompson—declaring each by turn the inevitable victor, until, when all were found wanting, they reluctantly reverted back to the original frontrunner.

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The Democrats have had a livelier battle. The initial field was stronger than usual; there were at least five candidates who could legitimately be considered papabile. But it quickly became apparent this was going to be a two-person contest. Clinton and Obama excited voters in a way the others didn't; they set limbic systems aquiver across the land. And because part of their appeal was their unprecedented demographics—a woman and an African-American—traditional electoral calculus was off-kilter and voters' emotional investment in the outcome was especially intense. Couples who had voted the same way in every election in living memory found themselves on opposite sides of a divide, passionate about their choices, suspicious of the motives of their partners. It wasn't always a case of women for Hillary, men for Barack, but that pattern seemed to predominate (as reflected in polling, yes, but also confirmed in my own household and those of many acquaintances; dinner parties over the last five months have occasionally turned testy and worse when conversation moved to politics). Of course, the disagreements weren't about gender and race alone; some voters of both sexes responded to Obama's cool eloquence, his rare combination of inspiration and detachment, while others preferred Clinton's dogged scrappiness, her methodical, single-minded refusal to be deflected or balked. Obama's lack of governmental experience bothered some; Clinton's willingness to flirt with demagoguery troubled others.

In retrospect, the Clinton campaign made one big error, subsuming all the smaller tactical blunders: their candidate ran as if she were the nominee, awaiting coronation. It was damaging to their own psychology—encouraging a defensiveness toward the media, suggesting that questioning the candidate was an exercise in lèse majesté—and it permitted the inner circle of advisers to listen only to one another, to view dissent as evidence of disloyalty. And they were slow to recognise that they were confronting an extraordinary opponent; many refuse to do so even now.

There will be an ongoing debate about when the contest irrevocably ended. The numbers suggested finality as early as February; by then, Clinton would have had to win the remaining contests by impossible margins to close the gap. But the atmospherics of the deal weren't clinched until 6th May, with the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. They followed a fortnight of very bad political news for Obama, and the demographics of Indiana played precisely to Clinton's forehand; these were the voters, white and working-class, Clinton had been claiming only she could reach. If she had a chance to reverse the momentum and defy the metrics, this was it, remote but not wholly dismissible. But when Obama won North Carolina easily and lost Indiana by only a hair, her last argument for continuing was gone.

So it's Obama vs McCain, a race impossible to handicap. In ordinary times, a Democrat would win handily. The country has recoiled from "the Republican brand" in record numbers; Democrats will certainly pick up many House and Senate seats. But in the presidential race, there is a pesky issue remaining, one that will barely be acknowledged and can't accurately be polled: that issue is, of course, race. Any white male Democrat not convicted of necrophilia would simply amble into the White House. But whether voters in 2008 can visualise a black man as their tribal chieftain… well, that's what we'll find out in November.