Even those who dislike Hillary Clinton want to hitch a ride in her helicopter, inevitably dubbed “the Hillacopter“. With a dozen presidential candidates criss-crossing Iowa to scramble for support before the caucuses on January 3rd, everyone following them wants to be in several places at once. And the roads are icy.
Parking is like curling. The main roads have been salted well, but not perfectly. After dark, the oncoming traffic includes farm trucks with only one headlight. Mrs Clinton only has to dodge heckles.
The locals grumble more about the weather than politics. When talk does turn to politics, the mood is disgruntled. A triumph in Iowa can kick-start a candidate towards his party’s nomination. Yet turnout is usually low. Out of a voting-age population of 2m, only 130,000 caucused in 2004.
More will probably show up this time because both parties are competing and the races are close. On the Democratic side, Mrs Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama all have a shot. Mr Obama is slightly ahead, but Iowa polls are habitually unreliable. Among the Republicans, Mike Huckabee has opened a sizeable lead over Mitt Romney, but with his new prominence has come unaccustomed scrutiny.
Every candidate faces a holiday season without rest. Most will campaign until as close to Christmas Day as they can without interrupting the festivities. The Democrats especially are working harder than ever, inflicting their friends, families and celebrity endorsers on hapless Iowans.
Besides firing up their existing supporters and courting undecided voters, they are also trying to persuade their rivals’ supporters to make them their second choice. Under Iowa’s caucus system, voters will gather in some 2,000 small precincts and discuss the candidates before selecting their first choice. Under the Democrats’ version (though not the Republicans’) those whose candidates fail to win more than 15% or so of the votes in a precinct are then invited to transfer their vote to another, “viable“, candidate. This takes time, so only the most motivated take part.
Each candidate has a different style. Mrs Clinton leads her troops through the snow with such discipline that, had Napoleon copied it, he might have conquered Russia. Other Democrats’ campaign staff are happy to answer questions. In Des Moines, Jim Mowrer, an Iraq veteran, says he supports Joe Biden because he is the only Democrat with a plan to quit Iraq without leaving chaos behind. The Clintonistas beside him say they are not authorised to talk to the press.
At Mr Obama’s campaign office in the same town, the welcome is warmer: a seat, a cup of coffee and a list of local Obama-ites to call. Karl Knock, the chairman of a local bank, says he likes the openness of Mr Obama’s campaign. The candidate does not simply issue orders; he asks questions. America needs a new leader who is not entrenched in old battles, he says.
Mr Edwards, a former trial lawyer and vice-presidential nominee, is running the angriest Democratic campaign. Though his manner is smooth and smiley, he rails without cease against the greedy corporations that supposedly make ordinary Americans’ lives miserable. He lies third in the polls in Iowa, but his tireless stumping in remote hamlets might conceivably allow him to snatch a victory.
Mrs Clinton is still the woman to beat, however. Other candidates pander. She does her homework and then micropanders. For voters who fret about the environment and globalisation, she praises solar power. Are you worried about violent video games? So is Mrs Clinton. They can lead, she says, to horrors such as the recent massacre in a mall in Omaha. Mrs Clinton knows the name of the local man who was injured there, of course. She’s really intelligent, agree several members of the audience.
The Republicans’ Mrs Clinton is Mitt Romney, an ex-governor of Massachusetts. He, too, faces a younger, more charismatic threat. Mr Romney gives PowerPoint presentations; Mr Huckabee airs an ad wishing Iowans a merry Christmas.
Mr Huckabee has ethical problems (he accepted a ton of gifts when he was governor of Arkansas), eccentric policies (scrap income taxes, make America self-sufficient in food) and a feeble grasp of world affairs. But his verbal dexterity and years as a Baptist preacher allow him to dodge almost any awkward question with a Biblical allusion. He is joyfully backed by evangelicals and home-schoolers.
A loss in Iowa could cripple Mr Romney, so he is fighting back hard. His television spots accuse Mr Huckabee of being soft on crime (his faith led him to pardon many criminals when he was governor) and illegal immigration. This is risky. Iowans don’t like negative campaigning, says Cary Covington, a politics professor at the University of Iowa. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, two Republicans with no hope in Iowa but national reputations, are biding their time.
For both parties, a bitter struggle looms. But actual violence has so far been mild. Dan Holman, who follows Mrs Clinton around waving a gruesome anti-abortion banner, was allegedly poked in the ribs with a broom handle by an elderly householder who accused him of standing on his property. But Mr Holman recovered and is still haranguing his nemesis.
ECONOMIST.COM

Time magazine has named Vladimir Putin its “Person of the Year“. Those who don’t like Putin gleefully remind everyone that now he has joined some of the most hideous dictators in modern history, Hitler and Stalin.
Those who like Putin point out that the company includes a lot of very decent people who had fought for peace, against hunger and made a notable contribution to the present world order. Among them is even an anonymous computer user.
Right off, we should give up the discussion of the criteria the magazine uses to choose the “Person of the Year“. They are not debatable, they are non-existent. The official formula that credits Putin with displaying “exceptional skill in leading the country“ would be a lot more appropriate to describing aerobatics, which is why the Time article about Putin’s presidency is as contradictory as the presidency itself.
The fact itself is remarkable and very pleasant for Putin. This became more than clear when he gave the obligatory interview to Time journalists before the much-prized title was officially conferred on him, but the Americans so annoyed him with their questions that first he demanded that they disclose the names and safe houses of the most corrupt Russian officials and then declared the interview finished without inviting them to tea.
True, the interview lasted more than three hours so that the journalists who were hoping for the dessert ought to have grasped that presidential cordiality and open-handed Russian hospitality were different things.
I have no illusions that Time has conferred the title on Putin, because it likes him. Most probably the magazine meant to highlight the role of Russia in the modern world. When the Kremlin gives the instruction to turn off the gas tap, half the world is about to faint.
It is one thing to discuss Khodorkovsky and the way top Russian lawyers use electoral law to put down sources of instability, and it is quite another thing when there is no gas in your stove when you want to make your morning coffee.
A president who can afford to pursue such a policy deserves close attention. He jolts Western politicians out of the complacency that they have felt after the Soviet threat vanished, and he comes across as a serious irritant or even a threat to the man in the street.
Putin’s Munich speech also showed that Russia no longer saw the West as a partner, but as a threat to its security.
The speech was like a bombshell. Initially it seemed to be no more than an emotional outburst, but when long-range aviation resumed its flights, when Russia pointedly carried out successful rocket launches and declared its withdrawal from the CFE Treaty, it became clear that the President was determined to make the world reckon with him and that Russia’s security interests were not the same as those of the West.
At least, that was the impression he had notwithstanding his chumminess with his foreign counterparts.
So, Time describes the Russian President as an extremely contradictory person. Inwardly cold, unblinking, brooking no opposition inside the country, he was more aware than anyone in Russia that it was he, Vladimir Putin, that the country needed.
In order to induce Chechnya to make peace, to make the oligarchs renounce, at least publicly, any attempts to influence the Kremlin, and to give back to the impoverished Russians reason to be proud of their country. And on that point Vladimir Putin is more sincere than anyone. “Every period has its own Messiah“ might well be his slogan.
The West is worried about lack of free speech and democracy in Russia, and Putin is worried about delays of wages and pensions. This is his top priority. That is his idea of stability, which he maintains with the help of his rigorous vertical power structure.
This accounts for his intolerance of opponents and blistering criticism directed at them. His message is: I am sustaining the vertical structure with both my hands, and I don’t care what my critics try to cadge from foreign embassies.
Don’t look Putin in the eye. Look at the roots. Time has done it. Perhaps, as many think, its choice of person of the year was a mistake, but there is no mistake about one thing: Russia is resurgent, and the start of that resurgence coincided with Vladimir Putin’s presidency.
Boris Kiamakov
Rian.Ru

Supporters of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto carry her coffin after her body was released from the hospital in Rawalpindi, Dec. 27.

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto’s assassination deals a stunning blow to liberal political forces in Pakistan and gathering unrest by her supporters risks tipping the volatile country into chaos.
Her killing also quashes hopes of Western governments that the charismatic, two-time former prime minister could team up with President Pervez Musharraf and galvanize Pakistan’s fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants after Jan. 8 elections.
“This assassination is the most serious setback for democracy in Pakistan,“ said Rasul Baksh Rais, a political scientist at Lahore’s University of Management Sciences. “It shows extremists are powerful enough to disrupt the democratic process. Musharraf’s major concern now will be to maintain law and order and make sure this does not turn into a major movement against him.“
Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro said that the government had no immediate plan to postpone the parliamentary elections, despite a top opposition leader’s decision to boycott the poll.
“Right now the elections stand where they were,“ he told a news conference. “We will consult all the political parties to take any decision about it.“
Bhutto died Thursday (Dec. 27) when an attacker shot her and then blew himself up as she left a political rally in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital where Pakistan’s army has its headquarters.
It was the second suicide attack against her since her tumultuous homecoming from an eight-year exile in October.
The other key opposition leader, Nawaz Sharif-- whose government was ousted in the 1999 coup that brought Musharraf to power--quickly announced he was boycotting the parliamentary elections, which are meant to usher Pakistan toward civilian government after years of military dominance.
Talat Masood, a retired general and now a political analyst, expected Bhutto’s party to follow suit--a move that would rob the vote of legitimacy.
Bhutto had accused elements in the ruling party of backing militants to kill her--claims that could gain more traction now despite government denials.
At the very least, the government will appear to be losing its grip over Pakistan.
“Conditions in the country have reached a point where it is too dangerous for political parties to operate,“ Masood said.
He anticipated that Musharraf, who recently suspended the constitution for six weeks, could take drastic steps.
“It is possible they could declare an emergency again,“ he said.
But Musharraf, who was himself targeted twice in Rawalpindi by Al-Qaeda bombers in December 2003, gave no immediate sign of an authoritarian backlash to Bhutto’s assassination. He declared three days of national mourning and vowed to fight the terrorists behind her killing.
Only a few months ago, he held direct talks with Bhutto and paved the way for her return from exile.
Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, warned that any suspicion that Musharraf had a role in Bhutto’s killing or knew about the plot and failed to prevent it could pitch Pakistan “to the edge of civil conflict.“
Sharif, a longtime rival of Bhutto, sounded a defiant note after the assassination of Bhutto, and her supporters rampaged across Pakistani cities.
“We will take the revenge on the rulers,“ a tearful Sharif said after he rushed to the Rawalpindi hospital where Bhutto was pronounced dead.
Western allies, particularly the U.S. and Britain had hoped Bhutto and Musharraf could unite against a growing militant threat and galvanize the campaign against terrorism amid signs that Al-Qaeda’s leadership has reconstituted itself inside Pakistan, posing a risk to global security.
“In a society becoming increasingly intolerant, she was being viewed by the international community as a person who could make a difference as a moderate politician, who, if she came to power, could turn the tide of religious extremism in this country,“ said Zaffar Abbas, an editor for the respected Dawn newspaper.
Cordesman stressed the domestic turmoil spawned by Bhutto’s slaying was unlikely to endanger the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. The government has rejected suggestions that militants might assault or infiltrate secret facilities where the weapons are stored. AP.COM