In the eye of the hurricane

I’m as tired as I remember being as an adult. The kind of ground–in fatigue that not even a good night’s sleep can erase. Too many late nights, talking to too many people, about too many angles, have taken their toll. No one I know thinks of going home at 5 (I’ll be working until around 11pm tonight, if I’m lucky).

As I’ve said before, Washington is a company town – the product it produces is government. For those of us who work here, life revolves around the peculiar cycle of the American electoral calendar. Election years are always fraught. But with the House, Senate, and presidency too close to call and with only weeks remaining before the result and the civil wars that are sure to follow (see earlier columns), no–one on any campaign is thinking about sleep. As Florida illustrated so graphically last time, every vote matters. Sleep is for November; October is a time of grinding it out.

As it goes for the campaigns, so it goes for the rest of us. Washington is frenzied as it plays its favourite parlour game. But this is so much more than a game, and as Election Day gets ever closer, so grows the sense of gravity in the corridors of power. Something deadly serious, and very important, is going on here – and everyone knows it.

As I said in an earlier column, America has yet to have its ‘Truman moment’ in the post–September 11 era. By 1952, with the Korean War nearing an end, the containment doctrine had been accepted as the organizing principle of American foreign policy by the left wing of the Republican Party (Dewey, Eisenhower, Nixon) and the right wing of the Democratic Party (Truman, Stevenson, Kennedy). The far left, favouring accommodation of the USSR and led by Henry Wallace, and the far right, led by Gen. MacArthur favouring immediate rollback of the Soviet empire, were both marginalized. Politically, America had coalesced around an organizing principle.

But today, none of the three foreign policy schools of thought – the neo–conservatives, the realists, the Wilsonians – has either achieved dominance or cut a deal with one of the other schools. America has not been provided with a politically accepted compass for navigating the dangers of the post– 11 September world.

This is what makes the vote of 2 November even more important than usual. In this period of ideological flux, the new president will have a real chance to help shape a Truman moment for the new era, thus enshrining his place in global history. This is what is at stake in this agonizingly close election. The crucial question: which candidate can best fashion a bipartisan consensus around a school (or schools) of thought in foreign policy, one that can withstand the rigours of this dangerous era?

The left wing of the Democratic party, the old McGovernites, are unlikely to have enough political heft to sway ‘New Democrats’ on the right–wing of the Democratic party, let alone anyone else. Likewise, neo–conservatives, with their scorched–earth policy, have so politically alienated Wilsonians of all stripes that a rapprochement in the near–term is next to impossible.

Only realists on the left and centre of the Republican Party and ‘New Democrats’ on the right of the Democratic Party have a chance in the medium–term to forge such a new consensus. Both candidates would face real perils in making such an agreement stick; but the one most likely to do so, for what its worth, will have my vote.

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Meanwhile, Washington is abuzz with hectic schedules, as we all try to work out the foreign policy implications of different electoral outcomes. Alliances are at stake. Jobs are on the line. My own week is fairly typical, if you want to know the details:

Wednesday 6 October: 1) Interview with KFAQ Tulsa talk radio assessing the impact of the debates on the election. 2) Lunch with realist from another think tank. Plot strategy for attacking the neo–cons regardless of a Bush or Kerry victory. 3) Speech for the Middle East Institute on the failures of state–building in the US in the post–Cold War era (take a major swipe at neo–cons over their disregard for soft power).

Thursday 7 November: 1) BBC interview regarding foreign policy implications of either election result. 2) Meet with delegation of the Norwegian Parliament to discuss same question. 3) Lunch with German SPD spokesman. Discuss ways to revive the transatlantic relationship in the wake of the election.

(Friday is the day I blessedly work on my book, out in the wilds of the Virginia countryside. Monday is a rare American holiday.)

Tuesday 12 November: 1) Dinner with a prominent German think tank specialist. Discuss how to revive transatlantic relations, regardless of the election result. Wednesday 13 October: 1) Speech at an event on Turkish accession at the Cannon House Office Building at the Capitol. (Despite the topic, the event evolves into a discussion as to whether Kerry’s more euro–friendly approach would practically amount to Europeans doing more around the world.) Thursday 14 October: 1) Meet with mayors of a number of southern Italian cities. Discuss the election ramifications for Europe. 2) Lunch with member of the White House staff to discuss the latest polls and what’s happening in the swing states. 3) Meeting with the member of a German think tank. Discuss how NATO can be put on a better footing, depending on who wins the elections.

You can see a pattern forming here – five days and 11 separate meetings, totalling well over 24 hours. As I say, the presidential candidates are not the only ones exhausted by this election.

Roll on November.