Zhongnanhai

I have already staked out my claim on the 2008 presidential election, and perhaps I was the earliest guy to do so. That being said, other factors can shake up the race, and we are getting lots of other factors.  Over the past couple of weeks Fred Thompson has emerged as a possible front-runner for the Republicans, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has just pulled out of the Republican party amid speculation he will run as an independent. Despite all this, New York Times editorial board describes the ‘08 race this way:

Mr. Bloomberg’s announcement that he is getting out of the G.O.P. but not getting into the race, certainly brought some fresh air into the longest and already most airless presidential campaign in memory.

Really?  For the first time in history, a black man (okay, he’s not totally "authentic" black, which is the buzzword in the US media at the moment) has a realistic shot at becoming President.  Likewise, Hillary Clinton has a legitimate chance of breaking the gender barrier and becoming the country’s first woman President. Either one of those two storylines are great, and this year we have both!  Not to mention the candidates on the Republican side: an actor-cum-senator Fred Thompson shaking up the race, America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, formerly-popular maverick Senator John McCain, a Mormon candidate (Mitt Romney) and now a potential respectable and formidable third-party candidate.  This is hardly what I would describe as an "airless campaign." What more does the Old Grey Lady expect? 

Anyway, I am just leaving the office, so don’t have a lot of time to expand on this (although I certainly have lots to add!). Below are a few links you might want to check out, with a focus on Bloomberg’s decision to bolt the Republican party and speculation on his next move.

• Some say Bloomberg has been preparing this bid for nearly two years, and has been studying Ross Perot’s third-party run from 1992. He doesn’t want to simply be a spoiler.
• Needless to say, his decision hasn’t made his predecessor, Rudi Giuliani, too happy.
• The Boston Globe isn’t too confident of Bloomberg, or any person who decides to run as an independent.
• And finally, if there is one MUST READ for politicos, it’s The Note by ABC News.  My former media relations boss (one of the smartest men I’ve ever met) turned me on to this, and it’s a must for those serious about US politics. Many of the links I’ve listed here are courtesy of the Note.

A huge hat-tip to Danwei for this article on a controversy in Salt Lake City. As I was reading through it, I couldn’t believe this wasn’t a satire of some kind. There are so many angles to this story.

The premise is this: Real Salt Lake hosted China in a football friendly at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Considering the game was in the United States, it could be expected that the fans cheered for the home team, and they didn’t disappoint. That wasn’t the problem — the problem was the taunts given to the Chinese side. Did they hurl racial epithets? Make faces with squinty eyes? No. Their crime was to wave the flags of Tibet and Taiwan.

Coker said he and several others, including five Tibetan men, were escorted out of the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles Stadium by about 10 officials, including stadium personnel and Real Salt Lake representatives, because they had been waving Tibetan flags and had refused to put them away when the officials told them to do so.

The controversy began shortly after halftime, when Chinese players complained about fans displaying Taiwanese and Tibetan flags and a sign that said "6-4," written in Chinese. That sign referred to June 4, 1989, the date of the Chinese government’s attack on protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Members of the Chinese National Team stepped off the field and refused to continue playing unless the flags were put away.

Now, clearly waving the Tibet and Taiwan flags would not be appreciated by the Chinese players. Although I’m sure chants of Osama in Mexico City a few years ago didn’t impress the American side, either. Unlike Tibet and Taiwan, 9/11 happened only a few years ago and left a deep scar on the American psyche.  It has directly lead to two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thousands of Americans are dying overseas. Many people lost loved ones in Washington, Pennsylvania, and New York that day.  I would argue most Americans have been personally touched by 9/11 in some way, whether they lost someone in the attacks, lost a family member or friend in the wars, or has seen someone head off to Iraq or Afghanistan. As such, I would argue that the wounds from 9/11 go much deeper to today’s generation of Americans than the plight of Tibet does to today’s generation of Chinese.

Despite this, fans in Mexico city chanted "Osama! Osama!" to throw off the American players and score political points. One American player summed up his experience in the game this way.

"Since Mexico won convincingly, every fan walked out cheering," U.S. goalkeeper D.J. Countess said Wednesday after training. "I’ve been hit with bags of urine, limes and batteries. There even was a dead chicken thrown on the field next to me in El Salvador, but since Mexico got the result they wanted, there wasn’t much of that.

"I’m sure if we would have won the game, there would have been a lot of stuff thrown at us and a lot of chants."

Dead chickens? Being pelted with batteries? The Americans played through it regardless, even though there were threats against their personal safety. The Chinese can’t bear seeing a flag they consider offensive. Draw your own conclusions.

Sports is about having fun, and generally shouldn’t be political. That being said, fans will be fans. I’m a big Vancouver Canucks fan, and their playoff drive this spring saw them go through the Dallas Stars and struggling goaltender Marty Turco. Game in and game out, fans chanted "Turco Sucks!" I couldn’t image how hearing 18,000 fans, chanting in unison that you suck, could make a player feel. Nonetheless, he played his heart out, was terrific, and was arguably Dallas’ best player in the series. In other words, he was mature about it.

I don’t totally object to taking things to a political level either, as long as it’s done with respect. No burning flags, no burning effigies, no racial epithets. Waving a Tibet flag, while it carries inferences of "Tibetan Independence" does not necessarily mean so. It’s a fairly benign way to make a point. Likewise with Taiwan, which has a flag that is flown in Olympic ceremonies and in places all over the world. Perhaps references to 6-4 were a little over the top, but I still err on the side of free speech. At the end of the day, the game was in America, and if you can’t make political points there without fear of repercussion, where can you?

I can understand why the government and players objected to having these banners and flags flown while they played. Just like I understand why goalkeeper D.J. Countess didn’t like being pelted with batteries, or why Marty Turco didn’t like being told repeatedly he sucked. But I can’t help but think that this is life, and this is sports — grow up, and get over it. I’m still waiting for an official Chinese government spokesperson to say that the flags "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people", a phrase that turns supposedly thinking, mature adults into defenseless children. It’s a sorry state of affairs when the world’s apparent future superpower won’t even play football because it’s offended by some piddly flags.

Regardless of the political implications, many fans admitted they were just trying to throw the team off.

Fitzgerald said the fans who were ejected weren’t really interested in protesting China’s politics and instead just wanted to harass and disrupt the Chinese team. He said other fans have frequently complained about those particular fans’ use of profanity and sexually explicit language and props during previous games.

Again, trying to distract the opposition is perfectly normal. Just watch an opposing player try and throw a free throw in the NBA.

Despite Fitzgerald’s reasons for being there, others were definitely trying to make a political point, and feel their rights were infringed upon — and rightly so.

Coker admits that he displayed the flag partly to distract and annoy the visiting team, but he said it was mostly a "form of expression about the plight of the people of Tibet."

"I’m going to be contacting the ACLU, and I’m going to pursue it," he said. "I want to hold people accountable if they broke the law, because I know I didn’t."

Ironically, the flags flown by Tibetans, Taiwanese, and other concerned Americans was nearly a direct result of China’s control of information within the P.R.C. When people can’t make these points directly to the Chinese government, they spill out in sporting events and other activities. If China was to allow free debate and discussion on things like Tibet and Taiwan, or engage with those critical of it, perhaps there would be no need to use this kind of an event to score political points. I highly doubt people would be carrying banners saying "6-4" if the Chinese government had already given a full vetting of the event.

At some point the Chinese government and people will have to come to terms with its sometimes brutal and controversial past.  The longer things like June 4th are ignored, the more they will crop up in events like this.  Keeping the people shielded from opinions and events that might be uncomfortable may work inside the P.R.C. for the time being, but it will spill out in other places, like this week’s football match. And it’s going to spill out a lot more frequently in the years to come.

This also boils down to the players, management, and owners of China’s football team.  Were they really so offended that they couldn’t play?  Was seeing a Tibetan flag so offensive and utterly disgusting that they were prepared to walk off the field?  Is this the mindset of the Chinese people?  And if so, the rest of the world is scared about what, exactly? 

__________________ 

Notes:

• Video from the game, including shots of the forbidden flags, can be found here.
• A fan, who was at the game and waved an ROC flag, blogged about his experience getting kicked out of the stadium here.

In the 2004 Democratic primaries, I slowly became a John Edwards fan.  I felt John Kerry was unelectable to red-meat red-staters, and it turned out to be true.  Howard Dean was obviously too shrill and generally just nuts.  Edwards’ drawback was his inexperience (much like Barack Obama today), but he had charisma, was a great orator, was from the south, and seemed generally likeable (also like Obama, minus the south part).

It could be argued Edwards’ star has fallen since then, especially according to an article published in TIME magazine.  The article, written by veteran campaign manager Bob Shrum, recounts the days John Kerry was agonizing over who to select as his running mate. It says veteran Missouri Senator Dick Gephardt was the man Kerry felt most comfortable with.

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he’d never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he’d do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade’s ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn’t pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

Kerry did go on to pick Edwards, and the article concludes with Kerry regretting the decision. It also says Edwards promised Kerry he wouldn’t run against him in 2008, a promise we will never know if he had any intention of keeping.  But Shrum makes Edwards seem vacuous and power-hungry.

The article is actually an excerpt from Shrum’s new book, No Excuses - Concessions of a Serial Campaigner. Having read the article and some of the reviews on Amazon.com, I think this is a book I’ll likely be picking up on my next trip home.  Publisher’s Weekly characterized the book this way:

With this lengthy but frequently gripping memoir, Shrum recounts his three-decade career in American politics, which he began as a speechwriter for New York’s Mayor John Lindsay and ended as a campaign strategist for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. More insider history than memoir, the book focuses almost exclusively on the author’s professional experience, featuring richly detailed accounts of his efforts working on Edward Kennedy’s, Al Gore’s and John Kerry’s unsuccessful presidential bids (conversely, Shrum covers his engagement and wedding to Marylouise, his wife of 18 years, in three swift pages). Unsurprisingly, given his background, Shrum writes with eloquence and passion; more unexpected is his disarming candor. He’s by turns effusive and brutal, for example waxing poetic about Edward Kennedy after vehemently criticizing Jimmy Carter. Later, he voices somewhat harsh ambivalence toward Bill Clinton. A deep sense of disappointment pervades the book: Shrum’s string of failed presidential campaigns led to talk of the "Shrum curse," which the author never managed to overcome. Casual judgments and frank disclosures along the way make this a provocative and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at American politics.

As an avid follower of American politics, I routinely get asked* about who will win the Presidency in 2008.  Perhaps, considering the election is over a year and a half away, it’s too early to say. But I’m on a 2-election winning streak (called George W. Bush both times!), and I think this election is a lot more clear than most people think.

I’ve said for a few years now that the Republicans have much stronger candidates than the Democrats.  Unlike Canadian, British, or Australian politics, the United States Presidential election is far more focused on the individual personality rather than the party. There’s no question that the electorate is tired of George W. Bush, and want his team and philosophy swept from the White House.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean the Republicans are dead.

I remember covering a George Bush campaign stop in Bellevue, Washington back in 2000.  That night, as he did throughout his campaign, he called himself a "uniter, not a divider".  Seven years on, America is arguably more divided than at any time since the civil war. 

I think the electorate is tired of the Fox News vs. Michael Moore partisan politics.  The winner of the 2008 Presidency will not be the candidate that can "bring out the base", which George Bush was successful in doing.  The winning candidate will have strong cross-party appeal and a pragmatic streak. The winning candidate will not be an ideologue. The winning candidate will have a mix of foreign policy experience, will be trusted by the American people, and will have a strong track record in politics.  The winning candidate will be Rudolph Giuliani.

The media attention is currently focussed on the Democrats, primarily Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I’ve warmed to Hillary Clinton in recent months, however she is still too polarizing a figure to win in a general election. And if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, he will face a strong Republican party campaign machine that will attack him for his youth and inexperience.  I don’t believe Americans, when the chips are down, will vote for a junior Senator with zero foreign policy experience in a time of war.

Unless Al Gore steps into the race (and he, too, may still be too polarizing) the door is open for a strong Republican candidate. John McCain has proved himself a maverick and used to have strong cross-party appeal. However his support for the Iraq war and the troop surge has hurt his credibility among middle-of-the-road Americans. His age is also a factor.  Many felt he was too old in 2000 for the Presidency, and he is now 70.

Mitt Romney, who is favored by my father, could be the dark-horse candidate.  He has good buzz at the moment, but his Mormon faith is bound to be an issue in the US media.

There’s no doubt, to me, that at this stage, Rudy Giuliani is the man to beat.  Nobody sums up America’s resolve in the "War on Terror" better than Giuliani, who defiantly marched through the streets on the morning of September 11th. For his efforts, he was selected as Time’s Person of the Year, ahead of George Bush.  

Rudy Giuliani has a strong record as Mayor of New York. His most notable achievement was drastically reducing the city’s crime rate and turning areas, like Times Square, into safe havens for tourists. I visited New York three years ago, and found many parts of Manhattan even safer than my native Vancouver. Giuliani is an excellent orator and, regardless of his most recent comments, is known as a pro-choice candidate, and is pro-gun control. This makes him a safe choice for Democrat and swing voters.

Giuliani’s toughest challenge will be winning the Republican nomination, because of his well-known Liberal views.  But if he can succeed in doing that, and I believe he will, the Presidency will be his to lose. He is likeable, polls well, and has significant cross-party appeal.  I really believe the White House will be staying Republican in ‘08.

*And by that I mean, a friend once asked me what I think.