I love elections, particularly those that bring real political change. Next Tuesday night I’ll be glued to the box till the early hours with my American future-wife and future-mother-in-law, expecting Palin to be consigned to Alaskan obscurity and the accession of the first black president of the United States.
I think my fascination for the democratic process began in San Francisco when I was 20 and marching for George McGovern behind Jane Fonda. Quite a way behind in fact: there were about 20,000 of us. I guess the sight of so many hippies protesting against the Vietnam War was too much to bear for conservative Middle America; McGovern lost by a landslide.
Two years later I was a trainee journalist in the vast BBC election studio, sitting just behind Robert McKenzie and his Swingometer. I’ll never forget the excitement of the first result, with Robin Day growling at his guests and David Dimbleby calmly in control. I was in the producers’ room of that same studio in May 1979 when Thatcher came to power. And in 1983 I directed the whole of the BBC’s election coverage as Thatcher romped to her second term.
However I think my most memorable election was in the winter of 1979. Regular readers of this blog may recall how I left my job on Panorama and drove east in an old campervan in search of love and the Dalai Lama. I ended up marrying my first wife in a Tibetan ceremony in the Himalayas, but on our way to Nirvana, we completely ran out of money, largely because we had to ship our VW campervan on a tiny Chinese wooden dhow across the Arabian Sea.
We arrived in Delhi stony broke, and resigned ourselves to selling the van and hitching home. Luckily we were befriended by the BBC’s Bureau Chief Mark Tully. One day he announced over lunch that the Indian Prime Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, had resigned. Indira Gandhi, ousted in disgrace just two years before, was hot favourite to return to power. When Mark told us the date of the election, I realised that in Britain the result would be announced at 8pm on a Monday evening, just as Panorama was going on air. I telexed my old boss in London, and an hour later the machine clattered back with the command: “Hire crew and start filming. Get interviews with Mrs Gandhi, the Prime Minister and the President.”
Our financial troubles were over. However Jilly and I had been on the road for three months; I had long hair and a scruffy beard; we wore ripped jeans and were living in the Tourist Camp, surrounded by vegetarians and clouds of marijuana. It wasn’t quite the image for the BBC’s flagship programme.
With gritted teeth, I went to Connaught Circle and ordered a baggy cream linen suit; a printer ran up some BBC business cards. But Jilly and I were determined not give up our lifestyle altogether, so we spurned the BBC’s offer of moving into the Imperial Hotel. Instead, every morning, a white stretch Mercedes slipped past the rainbow vans in the Tourist Camp to take us to the Presidential Palace. Eventually the urge for a hot shower got the better of us and we persuaded the manager of the Imperial to let us stay in the hotel car park and use the facilities.
For six weeks we followed the Gandhis: Indira, the most charismatic woman I have ever met, and her scary playboy son, Sanjay. On January 15th we sat in our van and heard Mrs Gandhi’s victory speech on the World Service. Her opponent, a man in his seventies, hadn’t stood a chance. Hopefully next Wednesday we’ll be celebrating the defeat of another septuagenarian, and the dawn of a new era in world politics.
Our baby’s getting showered right now. This is quite an achievement, as she won’t be born for another four months. But as she will be half American, she’s experiencing the first benefit of her dual citizenship.
I’d never heard of a baby shower until Jo announced that we were about to have one. Apparently it’s a party for an expectant mother where, as well as silly games like “guess the circumference of the bump”, played with rolls of toilet paper, friends and family “shower” the about-to-be-born with gifts. I’m not actually invited to this shindig – mercifully it’s an all-female affair – but I’m trusting it might save me a few bob in Mothercare. In fact, as this shower is taking place in Los Angeles, and we’ve flown five and a half thousand miles to be here, I’m secretly hoping the baby booties, or whatever we’ll be receiving, will be encrusted with diamonds.
I do like these curious American customs. There’s something wonderfully old-fashioned and apple pie about them. It’s easy to think of Britain and America as just one big English-speaking community, but actually we’re worlds apart. While Britain has allowed national pride to be derided, and family values to virtually disappear, almost every American, irrespective of race, still sheds a tear when the stars and stripes are unfurled, and loyally assembles the family round the dining table at Thanksgiving. I don’t know when the Old and New Worlds’ paths diverged, but there’s something rather charming about America’s homespun traditions and conservatism.
Charming, that is, until you see what this conservatism can do to its politics. To the vast rump of Middle America, Sarah Palin represents the American dream. With Down's Syndrome child in her arms and her four other children and childhood sweetheart husband by her side, she personifies the American family ideal. But it’s not the family that Sarah Palin has placed in the forefront of her campaign, it’s God. And that, for most of my democrat friends on the West Coast, is reason enough to signal the end of the line.
Sarah Palin, gun toting moose huntress, violent opposer of gay marriages, staunch pro-lifer, advocate of creationism lessons in schools, global warming sceptic, has crossed the line between church and state that lies in the political sand of every true democracy. For her, the Iraq war is a holy war, “ a task from God.” It’s no coincidence that her political star has risen just at the time when the fundamentalist Christian right wing has taken control of the Republican Party. Her campaign already sounds like a religious mission. She’s even against sex education in schools, despite the fact that her own 17-year-old daughter has got herself pregnant.
In Britain, Sarah Palin’s ultra-conservative politics would have made her unelectable, or perhaps consigned her to the fringes of the extreme right; in America she’s now considered mainstream. And that’s pretty scary. The possibility that she could be one heartbeat (and a fragile McCain heartbeat at that) away from the White House is making intelligent Americans on the East and West Coasts despair.
In a bar where my male friends and I have gathered to pass the time during the baby shower, Guido, who’s Italian but has lived for many years in LA, puts his head in his hands. “My God, I know our Italian politicians are all corrupt; but the American politicians are just plain stupid.” The woman who could soon be in charge of the world’s foreign affairs only obtained her first passport last year; she has yet to meet a world leader. As her inexperienced face stares down at us from yet another “exclusive” television interview (you’d think she was the only candidate), another friend adds, “You’re so lucky. Your child will be born British. With that gun-toting zealot, I really fear for the future of our children.”
Watching Clinton and Obama slugging it out over the weekend it’s pretty clear that it matters not what they say, but how they say it. Their policies are pretty much identical, but Obama’s ability to whip up a crowd is awe-inspiring. Provided it’s the right crowd. Obama has the edge with affluent intellectuals, but is failing to convince the white working-class. Meanwhile they’re both adjusting their rhetoric to avoid alienating entrenched minority groups. These days politics is all about compromise.
I first discovered the power of the pressure group when I was invited to the annual general meeting of the National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association. They wanted me accept the rather dubious accolade of “Programme of the Year” for Challenge Anneka. I’d decided to go along after receiving a personal note from Mary Whitehouse saying she considered it “good wholesome entertainment”.
The ceremony was held in one of those dusty London gentlemen’s clubs, full of toad in the hole and prejudice. As I had no idea what to expect, I wrote no acceptance speech, but thought I could wing it with a few thanks to my mother and the crew. However, when I arrived, Mrs Whitehouse shook me warmly by the hand and said she’d be grateful if I could keep my remarks to fifteen minutes because the Home Secretary would be speaking after me and he had to get back to a cabinet meeting.
So, grabbing a sheet of club notepaper and a stiff gin and tonic, I set about penning a few notes. The membership arrived with hats, Harris Tweed and sherry. I was glad I wore my suit. I appeared to be about half the age of the youngest there, apart from two scruffy 20-year-olds whom I assumed were media students.
After the preliminaries I was ushered to the stage where a large phallic silver object awaited me. As I surveyed the assembly, I was amazed that this little group of women’s institute and bowls club stereotypes had managed to become such a thorn in the side of the BBC. I began by thanking them, then said how pleased I was that the BBC had placed the show on Saturday nights because it could be enjoyed by the whole family.
At that moment, I heard a low rumble. The bowls club was clearing its collective throat. Then I heard a shrill “Hear, Hear” from the back.
“Using the power of television for public good…” I went on, and the crumbly audience began to sit forward in their seats expectantly. The hastily scribbled notes now discarded, I got into my stride, and rambled on about the rebirth of family entertainment. The rumble had now become a roar. At the end of every sentence there was round of applause. I was playing the crowd like a Pentecostal preacher. Or a politician.
When it was Michael Howard’s turn, the congregation was already warmed up. But no sooner had he reached the end of his first paragraph, as if on cue the two “students” stood up and began to heckle. Instantly things turned nasty. Within a nano-second, the entire audience starting hissing, burly bouncers had seized the “intruders”, and a photographer was recording the event in time for the newspaper deadlines. In fifteen seconds it was over, and to this day I can’t decide if the whole thing wasn’t a sinister set-up.
Of course, this is what most of politics is all about these days: harnessing prejudice. Which explains the total panic amongst right wing republicans when they realized that John McCain might not be using quite the right words in his speeches. At least now, whoever wins the nomination, the democrats are going to be offering America something new, and there’s a real revival in public interest as a result. Which is more than can be said for our politics over here.
