The Reading Desk: What can Labour learn from the Democratic primaries?

Anthony Painter is a candidate for the European Parliament in the West Midlands. His blog, e8voice, can be viewed at http://www.anthonypainter.co.uk.

Imported ideas can often lose their meaning. ‘Change’, the urgent demand of the Barack Obama campaign, is already rolling of the lips of politicians from every part of the spectrum over here. It seems to lose its spirit and energy on the trans-atlantic flight.

Barack Obama’s ‘change’ is about America’s place in the world, the way its politics works against the common interest, the need to protect employment and provide comprehensive and affordable healthcare. It is about the need for America to move on from the debilitating battles of the past and begin the process of healing wounds and massaging pride. In so doing, Obama implores the nation to face challenges that have seemed insurmountable for generations.

But here, it has become a glib slogan deployed without analysis and without conviction, mainly by the Lib Dems and the Tories. David Cameron protests that only Conservatives ‘know what real change is’ just as Nick Clegg asks us to change the mould of British politics. Here ‘change’ is just a political weapon, for Senator Obama it is a political movement. In British political discourse ‘change’ has become an echo of Labour’s hollow and timid ‘time for a change’ slogan of the early 1990s. For Obama, hope is audacious. For David Cameron and Nick Clegg it is plaintive.

Neither Nick Clegg nor David Cameron will electrify the British political scene in the way that both Senators Obama and Clinton have successfully achieved in the Democratic primary because the lessons they have learned are superficial ones. Labour needs to look more fundamentally at what the American election is saying about modern politics. It needs to learn those lessons and steal a march on its rivals. Herein lies a political opportunity.

Elections often come down to numbers. Five numbers outline succinctly the success (and failure) of the Democrats’ primary process. Over 30million people have voted so the primary has captured the popular imagination.

74% is the number of people who believe that America is ready for a black President. A year ago it was 54%. The race itself has changed the view the state of the nation. Many of those who don’t believe that the nation is ready will still be voting Obama anyway.

Barack Obama’s campaign has raised over $100million from 1.2million donors. Not only are people voting in the process but they are donating. As a result, Barack Obama could run the first privately financed Presidential campaign ever. This is movement politics on an unprecedented scale.

Barack Obama still leads John McCain in national polls by 2%. For all the fear that the prolonged race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will curtail or even eliminate the chances of a Democratic party victory in November, both their poll standings seem to be holding up pretty well. Just wait until the Democrats re-unite and turn a combined arsenal on the gaffe-prone John McCain.

The final number is the fly in the ointment. 30% of Hillary’s supporters say that they won’t vote Obama in November. Some of that is just petulance but Obama (and yes, it is probable that he will be the nominee) will have a job to win over a good portion of these, presumably mainly blue collar, white voters. He has been bruised by a forceful, often negative Clinton campaign. His weaknesses have been evident and some wounds have been self-inflicted. Winning these voters back will be a challenge but in a year when Iraq remains unstable and unresolved and the economy is rocking, will there be much appetite to go with a third Bush term under John McCain?

So the primary contest has engaged voters, shifted attitudes, built a resource base, and has not proved too damaging overall. The one caveat is that candidates need to be slightly more wary of the divisions that they are creating and be prepared to unify behind the winning candidate once the race is over. What’s the lesson for Labour here?

The lesson for the Labour party is quite simple. Don’t dismiss process, it matters. Pulling back the curtain and allowing voters to become part of your party processes is risky but, if handled responsibly can shift politics in very positive ways. Negative reaction from the right-wing press may have to be endured just as Fox News coverage and right-wing talk radio hosts plough into the Democrats but the potential gains are greater than the risks.

It is rapidly becoming obvious that not having a leadership election last year was a missed opportunity. This is not a criticism of Gordon Brown and it certainly does not make his leadership any less legitimate. He would almost have certainly won a leadership election and it was not his fault that nobody was able to secure enough nominations to stand against him. In fact, there should have been a leadership election because Gordon Brown would have won.

It is not just at a national level that the Labour party needs to radically review how it relates to members, supporters, and the electorate. Why not open parliamentary selections to our supporter base? Why not get candidates to articulate why they are right for the job to Labour’s wider support? It might just generate local interest in the Labour party and the candidate will have to prove that they can appeal beyond what is often a very narrow activist base. This would be a great springboard for any Parliamentary campaign as more people feel they have a stake in the selected candidate.

So the big lesson for the Labour Party from the States is that process and democracy are intrinsic to the outcome so it is misguided to elevate the latter above the former. Respectful, energetic, issues and policy based, democratic processes have the potential to demonstrate a self-confident party and not necessarily convey an image of division. American politics often doesn’t translate but its democratic energy could. Labour could be the party that understands that and turns it into a genuine movement for change. In other words, the future of Labour could lie in the audacity of democracy.