This year's race has made fools of us all. Cast-iron assertions - McCain is out of it, Clinton is inevitable - have melted into thin air, trenchant predictions have turned out to be very silly indeed. The other way of looking at it, of course, is that the race has made everyone a genius. If, after Iowa, you predicted that Obama would win the nomination you'd have looked pretty stupid the morning after New Hampshire but astonishingly far-sighted after Virginia. This is known as the Stopped Clock phenomenon.
I'm quite happy to leave the field to fools and geniuses from now on. Well, almost. I will make the increasingly uncontroversial prediction that the general election will feature a contest between Barack Obama and John McCain. But I couldn't tell you who'll win out of those two.
What I would say is that it depends on which theory of politics you believe in.
I remember someone observing, after Gordon Brown's first trip as PM to see President Bush last year, that the two men had fundamentally different ways of thinking about politics. For Bush, it's all about people. When he talks about world affairs it's often with reference to whether a certain leader is a good person or a bad person. He met Vladimir Putin, gazed into his steely eyes, and claimed to discern a soul lurking behind them. The political is the personal. To a certain extent this approach is shared by Tony Blair, who placed a good deal of faith in his personal ability to charm and cajole the players in any political situation to his way of thinking.
For Brown, politics is impersonal. Events are driven by underlying interests and historical forces. Individual leaders may make a difference but their agency is puny when set against the implacable, subterranean dynamics of history. There's certainly not much point in being charming if you take this view (without wishing to declare allegiance to one approach or the other I'd note that that these two philosophies do seem to reflect the personalities of their holders).
If you're a subscriber to the Bush theory of politics, then you'd probably predict a McCain victory in November. If you're more of a Brownite in these things (or, to use the posh term, an historical determinist) then you'd say Obama.
Why? Because McCain is a stronger candidate than Obama. He can point to a long and distinguished record of public achievement. He has the character of a fighter, rather than an intellectual, which is a big strength in a recession year. He has the ability to reach out to independents across the social spectrum and blue-collar Democrats who are uncomfortable with Obama for whatever reason.
But Obama, as the Democratic candidate, has history on his side. An incredibly unpopular Republican incumbent with whom the Republican candidate will always be associated no matter how much he touts his independence - not least because of his support for the President's unpopular war. A fundamentally divided Republican Party. An economy in recession. A deep, deep desire for change in the country.
If it's about the individual candidates, McCain wins. If history has its way, it's President Obama.
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