Last night over sushi delivered to my apartment, I had an interesting conversation with two friends, one French, the other an English ex-pat based out of Brussels, about the upcoming US election in general, and Obama's candidacy specifically.
The question was raised as to whether America was 1.) mature enough to elect a black Democrat, and 2.) whether a similar candidacy would be possible here in France. As the resident American at the dinner, I explained that the US is essentially a conservative country, by which I mean it is deeply traditional with a strong self-identity and sense of what it means to be American. Democrats have had a difficult time the past 50 years of getting elected to the presidency without the aid of either a 3rd party siphoning off Republicans and conservative Independents (thanks, Ross Perot!), or an extremist on the ticket (thanks, Barry Goldwater!). But this was going to be a change election, and the contrast between the two candidates could not be more profound.
"But just how viable a candidate is Obama, given the racism in the US?" I was asked.
"The 10% of the electorate who won't vote for a black man are not Democrats anyway, they are on the right, and they wouldn't vote for a Democrat even if the nominee was a white male," I demurred.
Which raised the parallel, here in France of the recent 2007 election of Sarkozy vs. Royal; and more intriguingly, of a possible Bertrand Delanoe candidacy in 2012.
Let me explain, if you have never heard of Mr. Delanoe. He is the wildly successful mayor of Paris - perhaps you've heard of the successful launch of the environmentally friendly an innovative Velib' bike system in Paris? During the last cycle of municipal elections, this Socialist mayor of Paris was overwhelmingly re-elected with 57% of the vote, and is viewed as one of the front-runners to take over as head of the PS (Socialist Party) at the party congress in November.
But the problem with Delanoe is - he's gay.
And since the head of the PS will most likely be the presumptive candidate in the next election against the sitting president, Sarkozy, this raises a further wrinkle for a left-of-center voter who wants to win in an electorale landscape that favors right-of-center parties.
The same argument about the 10% who wouldn't vote for a black candidate in the US, could largely be made here in France as well about a homosexual candidate, but I'm not so sure. I think the reticence on the part of many French voters against a Delanoe candidacy due to his homosexuality would cut into the traditional trade-unionist (read: left) "macho" voter demographic as well... thereby dooming his candidacy to an appeal among the more enlightened cosmopolitan left-of-center voters in the large cities, but ceding the traditionalist, provincialist-mindset voters to Sarkozy.
In the US, it's definitely not cool to be racist... but a bit homophobic still is within the social landscape. France is a bit more retrograde, surprisingly, they are more openly racist ("... did you hear that an arab family moved in down the street?" "that's an African neighborhood, you don't want to go there."), and homophobia cuts deep in the provinces according to my French gay friends.
My feeling is that Delanoe would lose in a landslide against Sarkozy, by a margin as wide as he won his re-election as mayor conceivably. For Obama, however, despite the difficulty of Democrats at the presidential level, I feel that there are two many pluses in our column this cycle.