The Power of the Clintons

In Latin America, former presidents haven’t resigned themselves to becoming dusty pieces of political furniture, but instead had two methods of remaining active: being reelected, if the Constitution of their country allowed it, often skipping a term in between, or intervening as party leaders and commenting as writers and journalists. For that purpose they would have representation in their cabinets and in the cadres of their constituencies.

Fujimori, Menem, Chavez, Uribe, Cardozo, and Lula entered through a different path: that of immediate reelection. Kirchner did it by inserting his wife, so that the expected third term would stay in the family. The attitude became popular and so a general animosity toward reelections gradually evolved into attempts at presidency for life: Chavez, Uribe, and Kirchner, into monarchies within republics.

In the United States the reality was different. I say “was” because even there things have changed. After one or two consecutive terms, an ex-president joining the club would proceed to enjoy retirement and reappear, at the most, to vote at the conventions of his party. With the Bush family there was a sort of revenge for the surprise that Bill Clinton had for Bush the father, who then encouraged his son to run for office, without having a premonition that his offspring would be a devastating termite.

As far as Clinton is concerned, he found in Hillary an opportunity for continuity. Intelligent, well educated, shrewd, and impassioned, she became a New York senator in pursuit of a comfortable landing at the White House. They failed. Nevertheless, the power of Clinton is clearly observed in the appointments to the Obama team. Control of the former leader over the Democratic Party? Obama’s gratitude for the final gesture of the Clintons before his nomination? Friends in common? Combination of qualifications and political coincidences?

Whatever the motivation, Obama is a self-confident man. He is the conductor of the governmental orchestra and he knows that in the relations with his team, the decisive voice is his. Obama’s actions from the day following his election prove that his personality is made of charisma and command. And because of those actions, his secretaries and advisers already realize that the work of their boss cannot be a deaf and blind struggle of bids and vanities between the boss and his subordinates.

The change won’t be only of color, but also of direction, style, character, and strength to destroy the disastrous inheritance of the previous presidency, as well as to return to the path abandoned by the obfuscation of a clueless predecessor. Discipline and unity are necessary to achieve this objective. There will be no time for the jealousy of prominence or ambitions which destroy the concept of power as a force in the service of an idea. Obama doesn’t seem like a person who allows it out of fear of cutting things short.

This doesn’t imply a disregard for internal debate or for the dynamics that ideas bring into a government. It is a possibility discovered in the human features and political conceptions of the president-elect, without detriment to the respect demanded by his privilege as a leader. To collaborate and not to invade will be, in consequence, the mission of the Clintons within an administration which starts off with the burden of a crisis unprecedented in the last century.