Possessed by the Ideological Demon

Republicans have carried the right-wing populist propaganda too far. Now they lack convincing candidates from the center, whom they need in order to be able to beat President Obama.

The American presidential primaries have begun! Finally, on Tuesday, eight months after the first TV debate of the Republican hopefuls, Iowa delivered the kickoff. Of course, the citizens are often nothing but supernumeraries in this electoral circus. First of all, in the wake of Iowa it is time to read tea leaves. And experts share their opinion about that great event that took place in that very rural and very white midwestern state, where Mitt Romney “triumphed” by a margin of only eight votes over Rick Santorum. But in reality the Iowa caucuses are not particularly important. Ask Mike Huckabee. The Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas won there in 2008 by a sensational margin, as they said. Ultimately he went on to lose the Republican primaries to John McCain. Today, Huckabee earns his bread as a TV host at Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel. Four years ago, McCain had come in just fourth in Iowa.

2012 is an election year of uncertainties. Big money donors and corporations are exerting influence more than ever before. Republican politicians have rewritten laws, presumably in a totally legal way, in order to bar millions of people from casting their vote, calling it a measure against “electoral fraud”. And a non-partisan association called Americans Elect, paid for by hedge fund managers, is mobilizing as a “third party”, led by a yet-to-be-named “candidate of the political center”.

Just a year ago, the political landscape seemed easy to grasp. The Republicans had won big-time during the midterm elections of November 2010. The talk was of smaller government, tax cuts, doing away with President Obama’s health care insurance. Due to the bad state of the economy, his re-election had receded far into the distance. Republican optimism was premature, as it turns out. They have carried the right-wing populist propaganda too far. During the Republican campaign, politicians affiliated with the tea party movement pushed to the top, putting some life into the party, but ultimately they are not capable of obtaining a majority.

Commander of the Drones

It is reassuring the GOP establishment, but it shouldn’t be surprising. In 2012 it’s not that easy to be a “reasonable” Republican politician: Barack Obama is occupying Republican issues even on national security, upon which the Republicans used to mock the Democrats as weaklings who lack the necessary patriotism. Obama, commander-in-chief of the drones, who has even U.S. citizens shot down on his orders, has taken over George W. Bush’s “War on Terror”.

Bush’s former confidant Karl Rove and the GOP establishment strategists are seemingly worried about their candidates’ march toward ineligibility. Even television preacher Pat Robertson bemoaned a few months ago that the Republican candidates were way too far on the right, which gave them hardly any chance of winning the general election. Further doubts were raised with regard to the blocking and delaying tactics of the newly elected Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Some donors got skeptical as well. The support of the latter is crucial in order to win the election. No election has ever seen a financial involvement of such dimensions. Back in 1976, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford combined had spent $66.9 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Barack Obama seeks to collect donations of up to $1 billion for his campaign this year — in 2008 his election campaign cost $760 million. The Occupy protesters would probably say: capitalism devours democracy.

Republican politicians try hard to make sure that only the “right ones” vote. Seven Republican-governed states have introduced voter ID cards. According the polling institute Brennan Center for Justice, 11 percent of voters still don’t have those ID cards. These are generally younger people and citizens from lower income segments of society. Other states where people have had the possibility to cast their vote several days ahead of the actual election day have shortened that period.

Totally Non-partisan

Third parties have always had a hard time in the U.S. In order to get its name on the official ballots a party needs to collect about three million signatures. The three-month-old association Americans Elect apparently managed to do so: According to their own statements, they have already submitted the necessary signatures in twelve states, including the most hotly contested states of Ohio, Florida, Michigan and Nevada. Americans Elect poses as a popular grassroots alternative. On their website they say that the country has been gridlocked by partisan political strife. That is why Americans Elect intends to hold online primaries. The presidential candidate who obtains the nomination will have to pick as his vice-presidential running mate someone who doesn’t belong to his own party.

Though details remain unknown, according to media reports the association has already received $20-30 million in campaign donations. The donors are generally supposed to remain unnamed, allegedly in order to protect them from the wrath of the establishment. It’s all the more surprising to read the few names that have been named on the website of Americans Elect or mentioned otherwise. The head of the project and the donors themselves form part of the business establishment and are hedge fund managers. They claim to be “deeply worried about the dysfunctional political system” and would like “to do something.” Totally non-partisan. It is possible that the super-rich, disappointed by the Republican cadre and skeptical about Obama coming under pressure from the Occupy movement, want to play it safe by getting a politician of Americans Elect on the ballot.

Who knows how the political world will look on 6 November 2012, come Election Day. These are times of uncertainty.