People Must See that You Are Desperate for Their Mandate

Shortly after the ultraconservative Rick Santorum announced that he was suspending his plans to compete against Barack Obama in the Nov. 6 presidential elections, the American press declared the U.S. primary elections officially over and deemed Mitt Romney the winner of the contest.

For a long time now, however, it has been impossible to call what is happening in the U.S. a genuine political race. On the one hand, not even the majority of Republicans want Romney as their representative in the presidential race. He has not earned anything except for the money necessary to continue his campaign. On the other hand, Obama is currently not doing anything but applying the recipe for success that Bill Clinton used to make people rejoice at his re-election — a recipe that has already produced a $75 million “bill.”

Firstly, Santorum, who had somehow managed to reach second place in spite of his ultraconservative discourse, has not left the race for good. In a passionate speech, just like Lincoln did almost 150 years ago, the former senator of Pennsylvania announced on Wednesday, in Gettysburg, that he was “suspending” his presidential campaign, a nuance that is extremely important from a financial point of view. Santorum received donations amounting to $16 million, out of which he still has $3 million left, according to OpenSecrets data. For as long as he is formally still in the race, he does not need to make any decisions regarding the money that remains in his campaign team’s account.

Nevertheless, there is an additional reason why Santorum has no interest in officially abandoning the race. According to the U.S. electoral system, when a candidate who has participated in the primary elections withdraws, the delegates he won are free to vote for whomever they wish at the Republican National Convention, the event that will officially announce Obama’s opponent. Santorum will probably wait to see who promises what in exchange for those votes.

More important than the events in the Republican camp, however, is Obama’s strategy of applying a recipe that Clinton has successfully tested and converted into nothing less than an electoral rule. During the 1996 campaign, nobody had any justifiable reason to believe that Clinton would win a second mandate. Nevertheless, the Democrat ran such a competitive and, on top of it all, such an expensive campaign (over $42 million), that he seemed to have already started to pack the paintings in the Oval Office because of Bob Dole.

Why this false competition? Clinton gave his good friend, Tony Blair, the following explanation: “[You must] show the people how much you want [to be reelected], how much you are prepared to fight for it, and how grateful you are for every last vote you are going to get. Show them you are desperate for their mandate.” Blair, who remembers this piece of advice in his autobiography, has successfully put into practice during the 2001 campaign the political lesson he had received from across the ocean.

Therefore, this is what Obama is doing now as well; it does not matter that the Republican candidates are weak, or that Romney is not taken very seriously even by his own electorate. The appearance of genuine and fair competition will, of course, cost Obama $157 million, which is the total amount he has received from donations so far, out of which he has spent $75 million.

U.S. citizens are no longer too happy to have him as president, but they do not have much of a choice either, since Romney’s sole purpose as a candidate is complying with the American two-party system. (The U.S. electoral system requires two candidates to participate in the presidential elections: one for each of the two great parties, the Republican and the Democratic.)

Obama’s approval rating was 47 percent at the beginning of this month, according to Gallup. The American people, so proud of the democratic exercise, need to rejoice at Obama’s reelection after Nov. 6. Voters need to feel that their vote mattered, that they truly made a choice.

Now they will probably witness a seven-month general campaign, in which Romney and Obama will spend all their money on negative campaigning and electoral events, since they are legally not allowed to use these donations for any other purposes. However, from the point of view of the delegates won so far, we are only midway through the primary race (1,135 out of 1,151 delegates; 1,144 are needed for electing a nominee, and Romney currently has 661).

Primary elections have taken place in 32 states. Twenty debates have been organized between Republican candidates, who have collectively spent almost $200 million, even though the electoral year has not even reached its peak yet. Nevertheless, we know that Obama will win a new mandate.

The only electoral race in the United States is between Obama and the American voter — a tandem that shows us how democracy made in the USA actually works. “Show [the people] you are desperate for their mandate.” Has any Romanian politician had such a revelation?