Where’s the beef?

American presidential elections are about personalities and policies. To date media coverage of the US primary elections has focused principally on the backgrounds and personal attributes of the leading candidates.

This is hardly surprising given that for the first time ever an African-American or a woman (and former First Lady) will be one of the nominees. To boot, the Republican side is set to elect a candidate whose personal biography includes five and a half years spent being brutalised and tortured in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. However, as important as the character test is for running for the American presidency, it does not tell us everything about a politician: we also need to know about their policy plans and record.

Foremost among domestic issues in the 2008 campaign - particularly in the Democratic Party race - has been the beleaguered American health care system.

Healthcare American-style is founded on laissez-faire economics and individuals’ responsibility to obtain private insurance (unless you are on solo-parents’ benefit, disabled or elderly). The system, although failing to cover approximately 47 million people, is per capita one of the most expensive in the OECD. Insurance costs often place a heavy burden on individuals and companies; soaring costs are now responsible for half of all personal bankruptcies in the US.

If either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama takes the White House this year, a public insurance scheme will be set up modelled on that available to members of congress, aimed at meeting the needs of the uninsured and the millions more saddled with prohibitive insurance premiums.

Significantly both candidates pledge to end the industry practice of denying equal coverage for people with pre-existing conditions or illness. Clinton’s proposal remains the most ambitious however, aiming to provide universal and compulsory healthcare. Her offer of tax credits to families and businesses to ensure affordability establishes “shared responsibility”, placing an onus on individuals to obtain insurance or be penalised for not doing so.

Obama has criticised the harsh implications of this proposal, but will nevertheless mandate compulsory coverage for children. The onus will however remain on Clinton to deliver, after her highly publicised failure to reform healthcare in 1993 while First Lady.

In contrast McCain will take an explicitly conservative approach, privileging the freedom of individuals and families to control healthcare over government imposed universal healthcare. In particular McCain rejects employer provided health insurance, noting that General Motors now spends more on employee’s healthcare than the steel in its vehicles. Affordability will be improved through the market, with tax credits for everyone who has obtained health insurance, and reforms to introduce greater national competition between health insurance providers.

Economists are increasingly in agreement that the United States has entered a period of recession, as they were in 1992 when Bill Clinton informed George Bush Snr that it was “the economy stupid”.

Seizing this issue Hillary Clinton quips that it will take another Clinton “to clean up after the second Bush”.

She proposes dramatic steps to tackle the sub-prime mortgage crisis, including a three-month moratorium on foreclosures and a five-year freeze on interest rates for affected owner-occupiers.

Obama contends that the policy will merely pass higher rates onto new homebuyers, preferring a more conventional approach of tax breaks combined with some direct relief for fraud victims.

As a whole both Democrats will ensure a more progressive taxation system, funding proposals by winding back some of the Bush tax cuts enacted for the wealthiest one percent of Americans. McCain will counter by requiring a 3/5 majority for Congress to raise taxes in any form.

Despite significant foreign policy differences, statements of principle from all candidates’ demonstrate that Bush has established himself as a great educator - in the imprudence of unilateral and inflexible international conduct.

All three presidential hopefuls profess a more mature appreciation of the complex and sometimes subtle dimensions of wielding US power effectively. Diplomacy and the renewal of traditional strategic alliances are to be elevated by all in future US foreign relations.

Among unpopular positions that can expect a facelift is environmental policy, with all candidates demanding a leading role for the US in addressing global warming. McCain has a proven record of supporting environmental regulations, while Clinton proposes the creation of an “E-8” international forum comprised of major carbon-emitting nations to complement the G-8.

There is also unanimity between the candidates in rejecting the inconsistencies of the Bush administration in promoting democratic ideals abroad, while at the same time derogating from human rights and the rule of law in conducting the War on Terror.

Where McCain is most acutely distinguished from the Democrats, and Clinton from Obama, is in relation to the ongoing war in Iraq.

McCain supports escalation of the war to secure ultimate victory in a conflict cast as the frontline in the War on Terror. The centre of McCain’s foreign policy is founded in democracy promotion, in a far more tangible way than has been seen under George Bush. McCain believes democracy is the surest way to ensure global security, proposing the establishment of a worldwide League of Democracies, a strategic organisation comprised of democratic nations with the potential to act where the UN fails.

In comparison each Democrat candidate has rejected the strategic relevance of Iraq, which has distracted attention from the real frontline against terrorism in Afghanistan. Specific timetables for troop withdrawal are outlined by both to be implemented immediately if either is elected President. Yet in this war for nomination Obama continues to draw political capital from a record of early and consistent rejection of the war; Clinton in contrast has been forced to perform some explanatory gymnastics to follow her back-flip in initially voting to authorise the war, then refusing to apologise for doing so.

Further potential flashpoints can be gleaned from candidates’ statements on America’s current and future battles to wage. McCain’s ideological bent manifests itself in a hardline stance against Russia’s curtailment of domestic freedoms and its regional antagonism. He argues that Russia should be excluded from the G-8 as a non-democratic state, while Cold War style containment policies through NATO should be re-enlivened.

All candidates emphasise a preparedness to use military power to prevent nuclear proliferation in Iran. However both Democrat candidates, particularly Obama, demonstrate a greater willingness to exhaust diplomatic means relative to McCain, who when asked of his intentions at a town hall meeting sang in reply: “bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann”.

Nevertheless, those who see Obama as the George McGovern of 2008 (the peacenik candidate who lost to Nixon in 1972), should remember that Obama has signalled a willingness to attack terrorist threats within Pakistan’s borders, even absent the consent of this key ally in the War on Terror.

In terms of their respective policy records, John McCain’s is the most interesting, partly because he has served in the Senate for much longer than Obama or Clinton, and partly because of an unconventional legislative record that has often put him at odds with the Republican Party leadership. He has been a leading advocate of campaign finance reform and of outlawing the use of torture by the US military. He has supported moderate positions on immigration, and in 2006 was one of a very small number of Republicans opposing a Senate bill which aimed to create a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

McCain’s record has a lot of cross over appeal; it also has the potential to alienate voters across the political spectrum because of its contrary elements: he is strongly anti-abortion but at the same time has been critical of the Christian Right leadership within his party.

To conclude, media coverage of the personal dimension in the US election is essential, but incomplete as a portrayal of the basis for selecting a US president. Personality does give form to the presidency: in the formulation of policy, in selling policy, and in determining a president’s success in negotiating the political system to give policy effect. Yet it is ultimately the substance of that policy which will inform understanding of what kind of world will be envisioned by the 44th President of the United States.