The race post-race

Unlike staid European democracies, the United States and India have always revelled in making their general elections into carnivals. The spectacle amidst which Senator Barack Obama accepted the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party Thursday night has indeed set a new benchmark for mixing politics with show-biz. In nominating for the first time a Black American to be the president of the United States, the Denver convention will be long remembered for an extraordinary attempt at post-racial politics. The Republicans convening in Saint Paul, Minnesota next week might not be able to match the glitter, emotion and historical significance of the Denver gathering. That does not necessarily mean the Republicans, who won seven of the last 10 presidential elections, have lost their feared skills to out-smart the Democrats.

At Denver, Obama had two important tasks. One was to unify the party after the divisive contest with Senator Hillary Clinton, who almost became the first woman to be nominated for president by a leading political party in the US. The other and more challenging task was to move his party to the centre, without abandoning the core liberal constituencies. On the first, Obama was hugely successful in getting the Clintons to lend unqualified support to his campaign. On the second, the jury is out. Obama wants to avoid the fate of his two predecessors, Vice President Al Gore and Senator John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 despite launching solid campaigns. The Republicans demolished both by painting them as “tax and spend” liberals out of touch with mainstream American values. In Denver, Obama promised an impossible economic combination of tax cuts for the middle class, getting the government to do more for the poor, and cutting wasteful expenditure.

He skirted the controversial question of abortion by asking for ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies; finessed the question of gun control, by seeking a balance between the constitutional right to own guns and the need to keep them away from criminals; reaffirmed his opposition to the Iraq war while promising a more muscular effort in Afghanistan. If Democrats have never been good at managing these contradictions, the Republicans have always focused on simple ideas that resonate well with white working folk — lower taxes, free trade, smaller government, individual responsibility, faith in god, national security, and American exceptionalism. Despite the attempt to shed old liberal baggage, Obama is some distance away from closing the sale with the ordinary American. Watch McCain trying to mercilessly exploit this gap next week.