Announcing Hillary Rising

I am delighted to announce that my second book will be published on January 7, 2016 by Biteback. Titled, Hillary Rising, the book will be a timely examination of Hillary Rodham Clinton and her rise to her current position as presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the presidential election of 2016.

On 12th April 2015, Hillary Clinton announced that she would run for President in 2016, casting herself as the ‘champion of everyday Americans’. After three decades of public life and intense media scrutiny, what drives this most intriguing and polarizing of political figures? What kind of president will she make?

My new political biography will be a clear-sighted, non-partisan analysis of Hillary Clinton’s rise to power, tracing her path from Republican adolescent to First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State and Presidential candidate to uncover her core principles and her political ideology.

As the only book on Hillary’s life and career by an expert on Bill Clinton’s presidency, it draws on original interviews with close associates of both Clintons and on a wealth of recently declassified materials from the Clinton archive to reveal the continuities and differences between Hillary and Bill, and whether it is realistic to talk of a ‘Clinton dynasty’.

Hillary Rising can be ordered from Amazon HERE

"The Next Vice-President of the United States..."

For those who are less than inspired by the current presidential election, I have good news; it will all be over in 6 months (well 8 if you include the wait until Inauguration Day)! The dynamics could not be more removed from those of 4 years ago. Barack Obama is far from the historic figure if ‘change’ that he positioned himself as in 2008. He has aged visibly in the role and is failing to stoke the passions as once he did. Unable to run on a platform of ‘change’ he has chosen the rather uninspired ‘Forward’ slogan, that has gone down like a lead balloon.

As a candidate he appears unwilling or unable to take credit for his 2 signature moments without them rebounding in his face: His health care reforms are being considered by the Supreme Court and could be rejected as being unconstitutional any day now, and his efforts to maximise the raid that killed bin Laden were scuttled by his inability to credit the work of those on the ground who actually carried out the raid. So all, in all, Obama is failing to cut an inspiring figure in US politics anymore. He may not be Jimmy Carter just yet, but the signs are worrying.

Facing the president is Mitt Romney. This was the governor of Massachusetts who introduced a health care system so similar to that endorsed by the White House that it was referred to as ‘Romney-care’ by his Republican critics in reference to ‘Obama-care’. This is a Republican that is acceptable in Massachusetts. He is also a Mormon, which causes suspicion amongst some and finally he is the very personification of an old school insider politician; a governor and a son of a governor. This is not exactly the candidate that the Tea Party were hoping for and it is their activism that held so much promise for a potential Republican victory this November.

If the top of the ticket is failing to generate any interest then all that leaves is the VP slot. The HBO movie Game Change aired recently, and did much to ridicule the Republican process in 2008 that resulted in the selection of Sarah Palin. Less well known is that the book this was drawn from was focused almost exclusively on the Obama-Hillary race with only a small section focused on the Republican VP process.

However, whilst the selection of Governor Palin provided career a high for Tina Fey and filled ample column inches around the world, the forgotten reality is that the Democratic choice didn’t work out too well either. The initial reaction to Obama’s choice of Joe Biden was hardly euphoric with many, myself included, asking how this choice demonstrated the much-vaunted ‘change’ that Obama had campaigned on. Here in the UK Biden was most known, if he was known at all, for plagiarizing material lifted from Neil Kinnock, aka ‘The Welsh Windbag’ and former Leader of the Labour Party who was routinely trounced by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s; Hardy a figure to want to be imitating in order to secure the White House.

Biden, it was argued, helped to balance the ticket. Well, ok, he was white and Obama was black, he was old and Obama was not. Was the implication also meant to be that Biden was experienced and Obama was not? That was a reasonable position to take from the comparison, though hardly a flattering one for the would-be president. Biden was from Delaware and Obama from Illinois, so hardly a great North/South divide. Delaware is also a tiny state with only 3 Electoral College votes, so he didn’t exactly bring much to the party on that score. Since the election Biden has hardly covered himself in glory, committing gaffe after gaffe.

If Obama is victorious in November, his power will begin to ebb away very quickly as thoughts turn to the 2016 race and who will replace him in the White House. Does anyone seriously expect that candidate to be Joe Biden? Of course not. Which brings me to my point: What purpose does it serve to retain Biden on the ticket? He no longer serves any purpose other than to distract attention from the president and to act the fool. He is after all, such a buffoon that even bid Laden recognised the potential value of having him in the Oval Office. So, if Biden no longer helps with the ‘lack of experience’ vote, or with the racial equation, his state brings virtually no Electoral College votes and he serves only as a hindrance, why retain him? There is simply no logical argument for his place on the Democratic ticket in 2012.

Obama needs a candidate who will be his Game Changer for 2012. A candidate to excite the base of the Democratic Party. A candidate who is ready to assume the presidency should the unthinkable happen to the Commander-in-Chief. A candidate with a track record of winning campaigns. A candidate who has demonstrated an ability to be a tough and loyal ally. A candidate whose home state would bring in a large number of Electoral College votes. And finally, a candidate that has a viable chance of winning the White House in 2016. There is no one in the Democratic Party that fits these criteria better than Hillary Clinton. She has denied any interest in the role, but selecting Hillary will also aid Obama in his depiction of the Republican ‘War on Women’ in 2012 and present the Republicans with a dilemma.

The dilemma for Romany is how best to counter a decision to place Hillary on the ticket. It can hardly of escaped anyone’s attention that the Republicans had a week field of candidates this year. The heavy hitters all stayed home, clearly anticipating a clear run against a non-incumbent in 21016. They will be ill at ease with the thought of joining a ticket that, if successful would keep them from the Oval Office for at least eight years, and which if it fails, could end any chance of such a situation arising altogether.

Romney desperately needs a Game Changer of how own, but if Obama selects Hillary then Romney could be accused of playing gender politics if he names a woman as his VP candidate. Not that there is a logical Republican female candidate who brings the same strengths to the ticket as Hillary does for the Democrats. Romney must do something altogether different therefore. His one sure-fire bet is to choose Marco Rubio from Florida. Rubio would excite the Republican base, engage the Latino vote, put Florida in play (remember 2000?) and certainly make a Republican victory more of a possibility than it is at present.

The challenge for Romney is not placing the call; it will be if that call is rejected. The risks are huge on both sides however.  If Rubio refuses and Romney loses, does it get blamed on the petulant self-serving one term senator who placed self ahead of nation and party? If Rubio accepts and Romney loses does Rubio get tagged as a loser, thus running his chances in 2016? If Romney wins, then does Rubio lose all of his appeal when he eventually gets to run, which could be as late as 2020?

This is a debate that has been rumbling for some time and must surely come to a head in the coming weeks. Not everyone agrees with this analysis, which is one thing that makes politics so fascinating. However, with the polls close, the stakes so high, the lead candidates so dull, the VP-stakes could not be more important in 2012.

Obama and the Death of the American Space Program

The final flight of the Space Shuttle atop of a special 747 (the like of which many people will only have seen at the beginning of the James Bond movie, Moonraker) reveals the true gulf between President Obama’s campaign rhetoric and his vision of the United States of America.

Barack Obama campaigned as a visionary, using a high rhetorical style, the like of which had not been heard since the heady days of the 1960s and the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy, whose siblings Obama so assiduously courted. He was anointed as a Kennedyesque figure for the 21st century, but almost as soon as he was elected the rhetorical style dimmed along with his apparent vision for the United States of America.

The high rhetoric of the campaign was replaced by a dull monotone delivered from the omnipresent TelePrompTer. The soaring exhortation of a better tomorrow was replaced by a hectoring tone and with a moral and intellectual superiority more reminiscent of Carter than Kennedy.

President Kennedy was known to quote Proverbs 29:18: “Where there is no vision the people perish.” America faces such a situation today under President Obama and this is exemplified in the state of the space program.

The role of NASA in the American psyche has been essential since President Kennedy made the astronaut the hero of the New Frontier and dedicated the United States to a mission like no other: To place a man on another world. Kennedy used the Space Program as a tool in the Cold War, but also to inspire a generation of Americans to greatness. “We chose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard,” he told an audience at Rice University. The successful accomplishment of that mission was the culmination of a dream, a political struggle and the dedication of millions of man hours by the hard working people on Florida’s Space Coast and at installations across the nation. It epitomised the American ‘can-do’ attitude that had seen the nation grow and become the most powerfully in the world in such a short period of time. In retrospect, however, it was perhaps the apex of the American century.

With the 1970s came the decision by the Nixon administration to initiate the Shuttle programme, designed to make space travel more routine and business-like, utilising a reusable vessel capable of delivering a payload and then returning safely to earth. To a new generation, the Space Shuttle became the epitome of the United States in the 1980s as it soared majestically into the clear blue skies over the Kennedy Space Centre, taking the United States into space and making such missions seem routine. But the launches never lost the ability to strike awe into all who witnessed them. 

There was something in the power, the majesty, the danger and the romance of the space mission that drew all in homage. It was a thrilling, exciting and dangerous exercise, which continued the original quest that Kennedy had inspired. Politicians of all parties were happy to revel in the reflected glory of the space mission and the recognition that it separated the United States from all other nations. It was an extension of Manifest Destiny and the epitome of American Exceptionalism in the third millennium. Even President George W. Bush announced plans to send a manned mission to Mars to continue the ongoing American mission to take mankind beyond the confines of its home planet.

However, the President of the United States has now terminated the shuttle program and cancelled the manned mission to Mars. At a stroke he has announced America’s abdication of space at precisely the moment when America’s competitors appear capable of assuming a foothold in that vital region. To do so is folly and gives credence to those who claim that this president fails to recognise the exceptionalism of the United States. His actions add fuel to those who wish to talk and write endlessly of an inevitable American decline.

NASA’s Space Centre in Florida, for all the romance associated with it, has become a sad reflection of its heyday, it’s facilitates yearning for a new mission to once again inspire the world with American ingenuity. Newt Gingrich recently spoke of developing a Moon base if elected president, a sentiment that received mockery around the world. However, whilst it is clear that ‘Moonbase Gingrich’ is about as likely as a Gingrich Administration, at least the former Speaker was offering a vision of a return to the glory days of America’s space mission. The present occupant of the Oval Office offers no such vision and as a result the very rationale for NASA may perish.

The world’s media covered the final flight of the shuttle but they appeared to miss the point. This was not a flight of fantasy, but rather a one-way trip to become a museum piece, to be stared at by children, too young to recall its magic and majesty, and mourned by those who could. It will be placed in a mausoleum by a president who campaigned as a visionary and appears capable only of presiding of the diminution of the United States; a president who appears not to appreciate the power of imagination and ideas that helped propel the American people from sea to shining sea and then out into the stars.

The final flight of the shuttle across the skies above Washington DC resembled the sad, lonely flight of Air Force One on November 25, 1963, as it flew low over the nation’s capital, crossed the Potomac and dipped its wings in final salute to the memory of the man who had inspired the moon mission and whose body was at that very moment being lowered into the ground at Arlington National Cemetery “Without vision the people perish.” It is such vision that America, its people and its space program require today from its President.