Friday, January 11, 2008

Can Gordon Be Hillary?

In the First Post today Donald Malcolm argues that Gordon Brown needs a Hilary Clinton style comeback. The piece is ill conceived and badly argued and he finishes with this.

Brown's new strategy chief Stephen Carter will be able to ratchet up the similarities: Brown is our Clinton to Cameron's Obama; everybody - in the UK, no less than the US - wants change, but Brown and Clinton have the experience to make it happen; Obama and Cameron are good with words but fail to deliver.

The most obvious problem here is the fact that Brown's in power and has been for quite a while, there are multiple skeletons in his cupboard. Hilary while being associated with power has had only a cursory involvement. In fact that's being generous because it ignores her failure when she was put in the role of head of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform. And let's not forget Whitewater either.

The fact is that its much much harder to stay in power and keep delivering than it is to be in opposition and while the comparisons between Obama and Cameron are tenuous both have the advantage of having little of the mud of failure sticking to them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your use of the term 'mud of failure sticking to them' at first I thought this was a metaphor but it isn't so, it is probably a Richard Havers figure of speech. Hmmmm.

Richard Havers said...

I try my best...... :)

r morris said...

Absolutely correct, Richard.
I'm not sure Hilary hasn't been in power in the truest sense; she was half of the most powerful couple in the world. Though I personally like McCain, I think it is a good sign that we have a woman and a black man who both have a legitimate shot at the White House (it ain't called that for nothing--should be the White Man House).