AFTER CLINTON - WHAT?

ONE of APN's most valued associates on the American political scene is Dr Susan Huck, of Maryland, a gifted writer and brilliant public affairs analyst. We asked her for an advance perspective of how the year 2000 US presidential elections are shaping up. Here is her evaluation. I hope you will be reading more of Dr Huck's work in the coming months.

The race … normally a fixed race … is on for the Democratic and Republican Party presidential nominations for the year 2000 elections. A fixed race, we say, because the choice offered to the electorate will be, in the end, "which of our agents do you prefer?" In recent decades, both candidates have tended to be members of the Council on Foreign Relations, and all candidates have known where their bread is buttered. No matter whom we vote for, we get a CFR cabinet and "bipartisan" foreign as well as domestic policies.

Contemporary wisdom has it that Vice President Al Gore is just about certain to be the Democratic presidential nominee. Political commentary has it that he needs to present his own "visions" and distinguish himself from the tarnished Clinton. That will be hard to do. Gore has almost no charisma, and his "visions" to date have been pretty scary. They can be found in his book, 'Earth in the Balance.' It contained such hysterical radical-environmental nonsense that inspired the demented Unabomber. He paraphrased freely from it when composing his "manifesto." Gore demands nothing less than a "wrenching transformation" of human life in order to save the earth! Every nutcase in the 20th Century has demanded wrenching transformations to save one thing or another; the usual result is casualties in the millions and tens of millions. Al Gore's grasp on reality is suspect on other grounds. Like Clinton, he invents "stories," but unlike Clinton, he lacks the charm which leads to "suspension of disbelief." He spins yarns about his "experiences" on that "thar hardscrabble proppity" in Tennessee, when he actually grew up in the Hotel Fairfax in Washington. This was partially thanks to the subsidies provided to Senator Al Gore, Senior, by Soviet agent Armand Hammer. So much for Gore's claimed innocence about impoverished Buddhist nuns lavishing upon him six-figure political contributions. Being paid off to front for America's enemies is rather a family tradition.

Gore's only current rival - and he is not much more of one - is former New Jersey senator, CFR member and Rhodes selectee Bill Bradley. Maybe he is due for the vice-presidential nod. But Bradley, too, is a crashing bore.

House Minority Leader Richard Gephart has opted out of the running; he is said to be looking forward to becoming Speaker of a

Democratic-controlled House of Represen-tatives after the Republican "Stupid Party" boots away the next election. On the Republican side, the received wisdom is that the two front-running candidates are President George Bush's son George, and the 1996 candidate's wife, Elizabeth Dole. We really ought to resent these political dynasties - Kennedys, Bushes, Humphreys, Cuomos, Bayhs. (Hubert Humphrey III found his pretensions to rule Minnesota slammed to the mat by pro wrestler Jesse Ventura. Viva Ventura!)

George Junior is accused, like his father, of lacking "the vision thing." He does speak Spanish (although with a gringo accent) and can thus appeal for votes from the Hispanic community. However, his spin doctors have warned young George that he will be watched closely for anti-Semitism, since his father once delayed an Israeli loan guarantee. Such matters are neither forgotten nor forgiven.

Bob Dole became the 1996 Republican candidate, ostensibly because it was "his turn," but in effect, to ensure a second term for Bill Clinton. There he was, a grumpy old man, a hack politician, and one who refused to make an issue of Clinton's "character." Slick Willie rolled right over him. Now his wife Elizabeth is being touted as the Female Candidate while husband Bob does commercials for Pfizer's answer to "erectile dysfunction." What a spectacle - fancy Madam President running the nation while First Husband pops his free Viagra.

So there we have the two leading Republican candidates - again according to current mass media acclaim. Also mentioned, more or less in passing, are other candidates less favoured by the Establishment.

There's former vice-presidential nominee Dan Quayle, who has an over-emphasised but probably not undeserved reputation as an airhead. He is so earnest in his quest for the presidency that he announced he is giving up golf for the duration of whatever campaign may arise. What else does he do? Good question.

Senator John McCain of Arizona could get the Establishment nod, possibly for vice president, or within the Bush cabinet. He is an admiral's son, a former Navy carrier pilot who spent many a miserable year as a prisoner of war, all this a bit of a contrast to Clinton. Alas, he tends to vote Democratic when it matters most. (Republican "moderates" do that.) McCain is currently a very prominent beater of the war drums with regard to Serbia. In this he is enthusiastically endorsed by Republican "neo-cons," neo-conservatives who are largely East Coast former socialists and "internationalists" in favour of America as Globocop.