One political news was everywhere today: Hillary Clinton joined the race for the US Presidency (see article from BBC here). With the elections up in 2008, she joins another Democratic Senator – Barack Obama – in the race to get what we would call “the most powerful seat on Earth”. Hm, I do not recall something similar. Hillary is (still) married to a former US President Bill Clinton – a marriage that was less then pleasant from what I could tell. The affairs of the former President went public more than one time.
But let’s judge her apart. After the sudden rise of Ségolène Royal on the French left Hillary represents the change in the old well-established democracies that tended to be quite rigid and traditional. There has never been either a US female president or a French one. Think of it for a moment.
Of course, this should not be the predominant reason to support either of them, but is an interesting phenomenon. I’ve recently seen Ségolène Royal speaking at the PES Congress in Porto and frankly wasn’t impressed. I’ve neither been particularly impressed by Hillary Clinton, for I largely dislike American politics in general…and she hasn’t managed to make me change my mind. But she’s of course a better bet than GWB. As is Ségolène Royal better than Sarko.