US Democrats Struggle for Russia
// Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are ready for hard line on Moscow
U.S. Democratic presidential candidates Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama have held their final TV debate in Ohio. For Clinton, it was the last chance to catch up with Obama, who is now significantly ahead of her. The debate’s considerable part was devoted to U.S. relations with Russia. Both candidates criticized George Bush’s policy on Russia, and were skeptical about Vladimir Putin’s successor. According to observers, Obama was a better orator than his rival this time. Kommersant’s special correspondent Dmitry Sidorov reports from Washington.
Moment of Truth in Ohio
New York Senator and former U.S. first lady Hillary Clinton and her opponent Illinois Senator Barack Obama held their TV debate on Tuesday night in Cleveland, Ohio, which was the moment of truth for the U.S. Democratic presidential candidates. Obama managed to secure the support of 1372 electoral delegates, while Clinton won 1274 votes of the delegates of the Democratic Party congress in Denver, scheduled for August. To become the only Democratic candidate for the upcoming presidential election in November, a Democratic candidate needs to get 2025 votes at the congress.
Over 300 electoral votes are at stake in the primaries in Texas and Ohio, scheduled for March 4th. If Clinton wins the votes, she will be able to catch up with Obama. Meanwhile, political observers believe that her defeat even in one of the two states will put the kybosh on her campaign.
In the remaining days before the Texas and Ohio primaries, the rivals will not face each other anymore. That is what rendered so much drama to the 20th debate between the Democratic candidates, in which Clinton needed victory only.
Unutterable and Utterable Medvedev
The most interesting for the international audience happened after the third (the last) break in the debate, when Tim Russert, famous host of NBC’s political program ‘Meet the Press’, asked Clinton and Obama what they think about the upcoming presidential election in Russia and “Putin’s successor”. “Well, I can tell you that he’s a hand-picked successor, that he is someone who is obviously being installed by Putin, who Putin can control, […]. So this is a clever but transparent way for Putin to hold on to power, and it raises serious issues about how we’re going to deal with Russia going forward,” said Clinton, who was the first to reply.
Noticing that Clinton avoids pronouncing the last name of Russia’s future president, Russert asked to name Putin’s successor. “Med, Medv, Medvedev – whatever,” uttered the wife of U.S. ex-president and a member of the Senate Committee on Armed Forces.
Being the second to answer the question about Russia, Obama preferred not to step on the same rake as Clinton did, and avoided naming Dmitry Medvedev altogether. However, those who believe that Obama is a more preferable U.S. president for Moscow were greatly disappointed by his answers.
Obama began with criticizing the Bush administration for being too soft with Russia, as Obama regards it. “Just think back to the beginning of President Bush’s administration when he said -- you know, he met with Putin, looked into his eyes and saw his soul, and figured he could do business with him. He then proceeded to neglect our relationship with Russia at a time when Putin was strangling any opposition in the country when he was consolidating power,” said Obama. That statement, both in style and in content, resembled the notorious statement by Arizona Senator John McCain, who also tried to ridicule Bush’s utterance about the soul he saw in Putin’s eyes.
The Russian theme of the Democratic debate in Ohio was not over yet. Russert asked Obama what would he do, in the president’s capacity, if “President Medvedev says to the Russian troops, you know what, why don’t you go help Serbia retake Kosovo”. “Fortunately, we have a strong international structure anchored in NATO to deal with this issue,” replied Obama, adding that “the Clinton administration deserves a lot of credit” for “the way in which they put together a coalition that has functioned” [in 1999, the U.S. persuaded its NATO allies to launch a joint military operation against Yugoslavia].
On the contrary, the statement concerning Russia by U.S. National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell, made the same day, sounded peacefully. “We regard with optimism the prospects of Russia’s closer integration with Europe, and hope to see a somewhat different situation over time,” McConnell said in his interview to WTOP radio station. Although the U.S. “does not like some things” happening in Russia, the country has transfigured in recent years, believes McConnell. So, he turned special attention to Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, “a man who is considered to be the next president”. “Watch his press conferences. Read what he says. He speaks in a very interesting way about the law’s supremacy, the force of contracts, human rights, and business,” urged the U.S. intelligence chief.
Speaking of Russia’s current president, Vladimir Putin, McConnell called him a “very strong leader” who managed to revive patriotic feelings in the country. Meanwhile, as the U.S. debated what Washington’s policy on Russia should be like after the change of power in the White House in January 2009, Medvedev himself gave the first public estimation of the prospects of the U.S.-Russia relations. “We have worked with the current administration, and will keep working with any administration formed after the election,” he said. “Yet, however, it is easier to work with people of modern views, and not with those whose eyes gleam with the reflections of the past, and who often preach half-marasmic views,” added Medvedev. Although he named none of the U.S. politicians, observers in Washington took that statement as an indirect proof that Moscow would prefer to see in the White House someone ‘new’ to American politics. Meanwhile, it is Obama who persistently positions himself as such, juxtaposing himself to “the politicians of the past” – Republican McCain and Democrat Clinton.
Anyway, Obama, who spoke about the relations with Moscow in Cleveland just a few hours after Medvedev’s speech in Moscow, hardly had the time to learn that his likely Russian counterpart believes “it will be easier to work with him” for the Kremlin.
Hillary Starts and Loses
Summing up the Cleveland debate, observers in Washington agree that despite the aggressive manner of leading the discussion on a widest range of issues – from Iraq and the NAFTA to the U.S. healthcare reform, Clinton failed to outdo Obama in the 90-minute verbal fight. Eventually, Clinton had nothing left to do but to attack Russert as well. Clinton accused him of playing up to Obama by making her the first to answer. “Maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow,” said Clinton in a heated moment of the discussion, with the audience’s laughter and boos.
Unofficial poll of 90,000 TV viewers, carried out by MSNB channel after the debate, showed that 70 percent of the audience regard Obama as the winner.
“Hillary’s campaign strategy had no other options except trying to attack and misbalance Obama,” said a source close to the Democratic Party’s top officials, adding that Clinton necessarily needs to win in Texas and Ohio. The source explained the stake on the Democratic congress’ super-delegates, made at the nomination race’s early stage, is hardly possible now. Influential super-delegates Albert Gore, former U.S. vice president, and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic majority leader in the House, have already made it clear for Bill and Hillary Clinton that they will not manage to affect the race’s outcome by means of super-delegates. So, Clinton needs to have an advantage in the number of electors’ votes.
March 4th will bring the answer to the question whether Obama will manage to convert Clinton’s another failure into his own full victory in the struggle for the Democratic nomination, and to implement his new policy on Russia in the long-term perspective.
Dmitry Sidorov
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 28, 2008
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