What the World is Reading

Barack Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination to run for America’s presidency has been a strange phenomenon so far. Celebration of the promise of an Obama nomination has been curiously tempered by the seeming inevitability of a Hillary Clinton triumph. But is it that simple? With just a month to go for the Iowa caucuses, which often set the tone for the cascade of primaries that follow, his candidature is suddenly looking stronger than it ever has. As The Economist (December 1) reports, a recent poll actually has him four points ahead of Clinton. This lead may be within the margin of error, but the journal notes its potent appeal: “Mr Obama is beginning to offer something that has eluded him so far — the sense that he just might win. The case for Mrs Clinton has always rested heavily on a combination of inevitability and electability. People will vote for her not because they love her — her crowds are notably less enthusiastic than Mr Obama’s — but because they calculate that other people will vote for her. An Obama victory in Iowa might just persuade Democrats to take another look. Mr Obama, who is by far the most popular Democrat among Republicans, is probably the best placed candidate to turn a good Democratic year into a landslide.” To make it click, however, it says he still has to give evidence that he has the toughness required by the presidency to complement his promise of invigorating freshness: “A black candidate in a country that was once run by slave-owners; a world citizen in a country that has gloried too much in its exceptionalism; a half-Kenyan, half-Kansan who went to school in Jakarta.”

Time (‘The Contender’, December 10) has put him on the cover, noting how successfully he’s taking on Clinton. But it still worries: “As Obama takes the fight to Clinton, there is no small danger that he could be tarnishing the very qualities that have made him so appealing and fresh. A candidate who is engaged in the ritualised back-and-forth that characterises close campaigns has a harder time making the case that he rejects the old gambits of politics as usual.”

At hand to assist Obama will be Oprah Winfrey, she who can make millions of even non-readers go through her chosen novel. Newsweek (December 10) considers whether she can help him conquer the south, traditionally difficult terrain for Democratic candidates. For instance: “In South Carolina, Obama’s skin colour has been an unexpected obstacle to winning over African-Americans. Black voters may love Obama, but they don’t think white America will ever let a black man win,” says the Rev Charles Bane of New Hope Baptist Church in Columbia, S C. Obama insiders believe Oprah, born in the South herself, can convince them that he’s the guy to provide it.”

Meanwhile, The Economist also wonders whether the dollar’s run as a hegemonic currency may be ending, and Time looks at the strained ethnic relations in Malaysia. BusinessWeek (December 10) weighs aid against investment in Africa. The New Statesman (December 3) surveys Vladimir Putin’s Russia. And The New York Review of Books (December 6) profiles French President Nicolas Sarkozy.