Clinton Must Shed Her Sense Of Entitlement

The string of bad news for Barack Obama hasn’t brightened the prospects of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The junior senator from Illinois continues to lead his legislative colleague in the delegate count as well as in the popular vote.
The best hope for the former first lady is the working-class white voter. Obama’s speech on race relations has failed to mollify their concerns triggered by the hate mongering of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s readiness to throw his white grandmother under the bus in an effort to defend his spiritual adviser went a bit too far.
Sure, Granny must have had her moments of exasperation in private. But she went along with her daughter’s marriage to a black student from Kenya, didn’t she. Moreover, she dutifully raised her half-black grandson without much complaint. How can her “racism” be equated with the venom spewed by the Rev. Wright?
Clinton can’t afford to play the race card. Her husband left a disastrous impression by linking Obama’s victory in South Carolina to his color. Clinton’s assertion that states she has won have more electoral votes in the November poll than the states won by Obama is not unreasonable. But in the general bitterness of the campaign, it has prompted howls of derision. Obama, after all, could insist that he has greater backing from independent voters.
Ultimately, Clinton must fight the regular way. With Florida and Michigan increasingly unlikely to have their delegates seated at the convention, she must score big wins in Pennsylvania, which votes on April 22, and beyond.
Specifically, Clinton must reach out to working class white voters with a message of patriotism rooted in her experience in the Senate Armed Services Committee. That may not help her win the delegate count in Denver. But she could at least hope to persuade “superdelegates” that she is better placed to defeat the presumptive Republican candidate, John McCain.
Admittedly, the Clinton campaign suffered a major blow when Bill Richardson, the Hispanic governor of New Mexico who served in Bill Clinton’s cabinet, endorsed Obama. But the damage may not be as severe as originally thought. The support of a great many superdelegates is still up for grabs. If Clinton is to keep them from emulating Richardson’s conversion, she must stop viewing the presidency with a sense of entitlement.

A Sordid Battle Of Wills In Turkey

Imagine any European country where the judiciary suddenly calls for the disbandment of the ruling party, as well as a ban on the prime minister and the president – only months after the elected government, under political siege from factional interests, takes its case to the people and wins a landslide. Welcome to Turkey.
Turkey is in the throes of difficult membership negotiations with the European Union, much to the chagrin of the current governments in France and Germany. But its accession prospects are also clouded by the battle of wills between the neo-Islamist – and pro European – government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and a secularist establishment that regards itself as European but seems determined to unseat the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) by fair means or foul.
However much they are covered with a figleaf of constitutional legitimacy, these efforts amount to a naked coup d’etat by forces unable to win power at the polls. If they come even close to success, Turkey really can forget about Europe.
It had looked as though this struggle was resolved. Turkey was last summer engulfed in a constitutional crisis after the army issued an elliptical ultimatum – on its website – saying Abdullah Gul, foreign minister, could not be trusted as president, and therefore guardian of the secular heritage of the republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, because his wife wears the Muslim headscarf. Mr Erdogan called elections and hugely increased the AKP’s share of the vote to 47 per cent. Turks stood four-square with democracy as the generals tripped over their clumsy digital démarche – and Mr Gul is now their president.
Now the chief prosecutor has called on the constitutional court to upturn the political order, alleging the AKP is pursuing an anti-secular agenda. His case is without merit.
There is a strong whiff of class resentment about the establishment case that the AKP – the voice of the socially conservative, religiously observant, but dynamic and entrepreneurial middle classes of central Anatolia – is pursuing theocracy by stealth. The real case against the government is its lassitude in pursuing reform and EU accession – especially after Mr Gul’s elevation.
That is a shame. Triumphantly re-elected, and with new hope for a deal to resolve the Cyprus dispute, Mr Erdogan has a strong platform. But he is using it to swagger around the country giving populist speeches and to change the law to allow girls to wear headscarves at universities. There is an issue of equity here – if the Kemalist dress-code is denying women further education. But it is not more important than, for instance, repealing Article 301 of the penal code, under which writers are being prosecuted for the crime of insulting “Turkishness”.
Mr Erdogan should stop stalling and resume the constitutional revolution over which he has presided. – Financial Times

Changing China In Its People’s Name

CHINA’S National People’s Congress now under way is not a forum where anything reflecting the government’s drawbacks are debated, but it should increasingly serve as a time for soul searching for the government as times change and it becomes difficult to hold on to the strict one party control over everything inside the borders.
Beijing is no doubt not too far from becoming the centre of the world’s attention as China’s ascent to superpower status draws nearer every time it posts theory defying high growth, but certain mechanisms of the country’s ruling ethics are in crying need of transformation if the rise is to be facilitated, not retarded.
It goes without saying that China has done best among emerging economies on the economic front. Its gains on the income distribution front have been faster and bigger than almost all contemporaries, most of whom are still stuck with the discredited trickle down theory. Rising inflation, now a global phenomenon, is something that amicable policies can arrest before it get truly out of control. Where China really needs to pull its socks up is implementation social and political philosophy from a by-gone era, something that must change for progress to be evenly spread, especially since people are the prime engines of progress in the new world.
They way Chinese authorities attempt to control dissent or even mild difference of opinion is not fitting for a rising power like Beijing. With Olympics coming its way, it will have to live up to some of its human rights specific pledges, making for a fine time to loosen the strong choke hold on the public’s social and political opinion. No doubt authorities need to exercise caution that too sudden a change does not encourage unruly elements up to no good, but that controlled opinion is not going to last much longer is granted. The People’s Congress should live up to its name and accommodate more of people’s opinions.

Costly Franco-German Chilliness

The European Union has not been shivering from the chilliness that has set into relations between two of its most powerful members. Yet the rifts between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have assumed greater seriousness in view of the ratification of the revised European constitution.
Over the weeks, Sarkozy has chastised the European Central Bank for not focusing on stimulating economic growth. His interventions prompted the German chancellor to publicly defend the bank’s independence.
Germany, for its part, was infuriated last year when Sarkozy postponed France’s commitment to balance its budget by 2010, and instead announced tax cuts worth 15 billion euros a year.
Sarkozy’s proposal for a union of Mediterranean countries, too, took Germany by surprise. Indeed Berlin was wary of a framework that would have operated outside the Barcelona process – the EU’s program for closer relations with non-member Mediterranean countries. In this particular case, Sarkozy subsequently agreed to revitalize the Barcelona process.
The EU, to be sure, is much more than a French-German enterprise. Yet it is hard to contemplate progress in the institution without Paris and Berlin being focused on the same page.
Admittedly, Sarkozy’s comfortable parliamentary majority offers him greater leeway in articulating his policy preferences. Merkel, on the other hand, leads a testy coalition that stymies ambitious initiatives. Yet much seems to be riding on Sarkozy’s personality. Sometimes he just seems unwilling to acknowledge the operating principles that have served the EU well. An important one, of course, is a strong French-German relationship.