The world isn't sure what it wants from the United States. Here's what the new president must provide.
So the seemingly endless U.S. presidential campaign is finally ending. If it started with a high level of excitement, it soon began to feel like Mao's Long March, a grueling journey where only the true believers could maintain their enthusiasm. Now, there will be more than just relief that the journey is over: there will be a new burst of excitement. This happens whenever a new president takes office, but it'll be doubly the case here. The weariness with eight years of the Bush administration and fears about the global economy guarantees that, at least for a while, the new team will inspire new hope at home and abroad, almost a dizzying sense of new possibilities.
But it's precisely at this moment that it's worth stepping back and coolly examining the lessons of these elections—and then considering what they may mean for the United States' role in the world. This presidential campaign demonstrated the enduring strength and vitality of the American electoral process, along with some of its weaknesses that tend to discourage bold leadership. All of which has implications for how the United States will project its power and influence in the years ahead. The whole world will be watching the performance of the new administration, looking carefully for signals to whether it understands that the rules of the global game have been changing as well.
Understandably, what electrified much of the world was that a black candidate—or, more accurately, a mixed race young politician with an exotic-sounding name—could make a serious bid for the White House. Yes, that does demonstrate how much and how quickly American society has changed in its attitudes about race. It was also fascinating to see how many Europeans felt virtuous by supporting Barack Obama, convinced that this demonstrated how they are equally liberal on racial issues. "Everyone is for Obama here," a French intellectual told me in Paris recently. When I asked if a black politician could win in France, however, he unhesitatingly responded: "No, conditions are different here."
But this election highlights something else that few people have noticed: the contrast between the American and European electoral systems, which made both Barack Obama's and John McCain's candidacies possible. There's no doubt that the American system of primaries and caucuses is horrendously complicated. Because of the staggering sums needed to wage these long campaigns, it also invites financial abuses. But this time, in particular, the virtues of this tortuous process were more evident than ever.
If the United States had the Polish, German or almost any other European country's political system, neither Obama nor McCain would have been their party's standard-bearer. In parliamentary democracies, the party elites usually determine who will lead them into electoral battle long before any elections are scheduled. During this particular American contest, the favorite of the Democratic Party elite was Hillary Clinton. The choice of the Republican Party's establishment was far less evident, but it certainly wasn't McCain. He was always considered too independent and unpredictable. But the long road of primaries and caucuses allowed the parties' rank-and-file to defy the elites and propel these two men to the top.
In other words, American-style democracy worked, producing upsets in both parties. There was nothing pre-cooked about this year's contest. That said, the resulting campaign of these genuinely interesting candidates proved to be largely disappointing. Their debates involved little more than formulaic repetitions of party positions, and neither candidate ventured many original ideas or let slip any truly revealing personal emotions. They were much less engaging than the debates between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal in the French presidential contest, which felt less scripted and more personal.
The bland American debates were no accident. This was a campaign conducted in the YouTube age, where any verbal slip, any casual statement that suggests beliefs that are deemed controversial or any inadvertently compromising behavior is replayed endlessly on television and on the Web. As a result, the safest bet for a candidate is to keep repeating the same carefully vetted messages in rally after rally, day after day. That's why what should have been an exciting election from start to finish often felt ritualistic and devoid of truly challenging ideas.
But to succeed, the new American president will need to challenge both the world and his own people with new ideas and new approaches. That will mean breaking out of the bland campaign mode, which won't be easy after nearly two years of it. And he won't have much time to switch gears. Too many problems and too many unresolved issues are on the agenda to give him the luxury of time to examine each one carefully and then spend weeks or months weighing his options. Events will force his hand and lead to early snap judgments on whether he's up to the job.
