Why Tony Blair fears the coming of President Kerry

[kskiska]

Clinton made Labour credible, now the Democrats threaten Bush's ally

If there is one thing that Tony Blair has never underestimated, it is the importance of an American presidential election in shaping the dynamics of British domestic politics. Until now. For years, Blair's analysis of American politics has been simple, strategic and, ultimately, determinist. He believes that we live downstream from them. He believes that what happens in the US defines the limits of the possible for Britain, and thus for the Labour party.

Everyone knows about the practical lessons that Blair's Labour party learned from Bill Clinton - the campaign tactics, the triangulation, and even what became the third way ideology. What fewer people grasp is the overriding importance that Blair attached to the fact that Clinton won.

Clinton's victory in 1992, after 12 years of rightwing Republican rule, made New Labour credible. With a Democrat in the White House at last, Blair believed it was possible for a reformist, mildly social democratic Labour party to present itself as cutting with the grain of history. If Clinton had lost in 1992, then, Blair believed, Labour's task next time round would have been just as hard as it had proved to be against John Major in 1992.

(snip)

You might think, therefore, that behind the doors of Downing Street there is also a new optimism about the possibilities opened up by the turn of events in America. Given the axiomatic importance Blair attaches to US presidential politics, you might assume the prime minister's mood has lightened, as he contemplates the possibility of a 2005 general election conducted in the light, not of a triumphalist Bush re-election but of Bush's deposition by his more internationalist Democratic challenger.

But I fear that you might be wrong. If Bush is defeated in November, does that actually make Blair stronger or weaker? Would a Kerry victory give fresh credibility to Blair the Labour prime minister or toll the knell for Blair the Bush ally? Inside Downing Street there is much disagreement about all this. It is a mark of the political cancer caused by the Iraq war that it cannot be assumed that Blair wants Kerry to win. It is the ultimate pessimism that Blair may even prefer to see Bush re-elected.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1149956,00.html

[bigwillq]

1. "Why Tony Blair fears the coming of President Kerry"

because he will no longer be the shrub's puppet. Blair will look less credible. He has been riding the shrub's coat tailes in all it's horror since the shrub was "selected".