Is Hillary Clinton set to quit? Misogyny is stronger than racism?

Last night’s Drudge Report included a breaking newsflash that seems to indicate that Hillary Clinton, for so long the favourite to take the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, may well be on the verge of dropping out of the race for the White House.

The general mood in the media seems to be that Hillary is close to cracking under the strain.

An incredible surge of support behind Barack Obama has led to a division in the Clinton camp over how much further she should go before calling it a day (having seen the results at Polokwane, nothing surprises me any more).

Is this a case, as suggested by David Aaronovitch in today’s Times of London, of misogyny being stronger than racism? Or is it something far more enlightened?

Dare I suggest that it’s the latter and that we are we seeing the emergence of “vertical” or “post-partisan politics” in the US? The electorate, sick of choosing the wrapping, now wants to see what’s in the gift before giving it the stamp of approval; the wrapping being the party and each gift represented by a candidate made up of the aggregate of his or her views.

In the Republican race we saw Mike Huckabee edge the Iowa caucus — Huck, being the most “indigent” of the candidates, has rocked the GOPs with what he has styled “vertical politics”.

Perry Bacon Jnr in the Washington Post quotes him as follows:

“People are tired of horizontal politics, left, right, liberal, conservative, Democrats-Republicans, screaming, yelling,” former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee told a crowd in Ames, Iowa this week. “Most people in America are not looking for a horizontal candidate but a vertical one.”

“Ultimately, people don’t care whether an issue comes from the left or the right,” Huckabee writes on his website. “What they want to talk about are ideas that lift America up and make us better. It’s what I call vertical politics.”

While I seriously doubt that Huckabee can sustain his drive all the way to a GOP nomination at the primary, his refreshing approach is having an impact — and therein lies a lesson for the candidates: endless spinning of the party line can be dangerous to your political health.

Far more telling, in real terms, is the arrival of Barack Obama and his post-partisan politics.

While there is no doubting that his boyish charm, sincerity and fresh approach has struck a chord among Democratic voters, his appeal to independent and even Republican voters may well be sending the first African-American (yeah, yeah, I know — don’t split hairs about his parentage) to the White House.

Critical is the fact that the lines between left and right, which have been blurring for a while, now appear to be breaking down.

Where in the past we saw Republicans as interventionist, anti-abortion and anti-gay rights, now we see Rudi Giuliani who is openly pro-abortion and pro-gay rights being endorsed by, of all people, evangelist Pat Robertson. Expedience? Maybe, but it does make him far more acceptable to Democratic voters.

When Democrats were isolationists we saw them voting in droves to invade Iraq — caught up in 9/11, as they were, it is understandable, but it also indicates that the times dictate that it is no longer possible simply to follow the standard party line. Democrats may become interventionists and Republicans deny that they wanted to invade Iraq, as instant polls demand shifts in policy to suit the manic mood swings of the American electorate.

Politicians are having to break from conventional party lines to select policies, from a smorgasbord of issues, that best suit them individually. Thus we may find a Republican with many Democratic views or, as Huckabee puts it, vertical politics.

The result is that there is a confluence between left- and right-wing politics, leaving voters to lean towards personalities rather than following the party.

In Britain this is even more marked — New Labour looks more like the Conservatives than the Tories. David Cameron has now gone about trying to New Labour the Tories into power — if you can make any sense of that.

Yet something vertical is starting to emerge there as well. Where Tony Blair of the boyish charm walked water, Gordon Brown of the aloof, moody disposition is alienating friends fast. With left and right so close together right now, it is the personality of the individual rather than the party that is holding sway.

Perhaps this is why Jacob Zuma, ostensibly from the left, overcame a more centrist yet aloof President Mbeki at Polokwane. People want to feel their leader and hug him close rather than be advised that he has our best interests at heart.

You might want to keep an eye out for Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats who are starting to make their presence felt — his confirmation that he does not believe in God has been a resounding success and seems to be a break with tradition.

While Tony Blair admitted that if you mentioned religion in politics people thought you were a nutter, it seemed to be an unwritten law that you did believe in God even if you never mentioned it.

No more.

Are we seeing the move towards the centre or a crossing of party lines heralding a paradigm shift in politics, with personality and individual policy preferences trumping party loyalties?

Perhaps — or maybe the emergence of China and Russia, along with the credit crunch, terrorism and the fight for vital resources, could force the hand of any occupant of the White House simply to follow (give or take a comma here and there) the path of his predecessor, in which case it’s back to the spinning board.

Whichever way it goes, we won’t be bored.