PARIS
Last Sunday, March 21, saw two world leaders facing a key vote that would define the two-year remainder of their presidencies. I am, of course, referring to Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy. The Leader of the Free World (interesting how we stopped hearing that phrase when BO became president) was facing the break-or-make-a-presidency vote in the House of Representatives on his healthcare reform plans; while Sarko, whose party controlled only two of France's 22 regions, tried to show his abysmal approval ratings didn't rub off onto local polls.
If we are to believe the French satitical show, Les Guignols, Sarkozy has a heavy chip on his shoulder regarding Obama: the US president is taller, more handsome, an extraodinarily skilled orator, enjoys rock-star popularity all over the world and has a bigger plane - like all testosterone-high males, our leaders are obsessed with size. Well, if that is true, the results of the votes held on the same day did nothing to dent Sarkozy's inferiority complex.
Obama won the vote thus getting what may well be his lasting achievement, while Sarkozy lost Corsica (the home of another short, Gallic leader with ambitions of global grandeur) thus finding himself with ALL but one of France's regions controlled by the Socialists. Rarely had a political slap sounded so thunderous.
What does this tell us about these two rulers, their leadership style, their likely legacy and why we should bother? Since they lead major countries what they do does impact people's lives, for better or worse. In Obama's case, one can safely say the healthcare reform bill is for the better, as tens of millions of American citizens who were exposed to great hardships, made even worse in the economic downturn, got a strong helping hand. No longer will insurance companies be able to play with literally life-and-death matters with only one objective in mind: making even more money for their obscenely fat stockholders (obese is probably the right word.) So far Obama has not had a major political success: sure he's avoided a full financial meltdown but a negative is rarely a good indicator of success and, anyway, the economy is still in the doldrums with unemployment at record levels. On the foreign-policy front, his amazing popularity has yet to translate into substantial gains: the Middle East peace process is stuck (I'll come back to that later), Iran, Cuba, Venezuela are not any friendlier, Russia and China are, if anything, frustrating him at every corner. So, yes, there are still a lot of things for which, to be charitable, the jury's still out, but there's no denying that healthcare reform is a major achievement arrived at through vision, patience, dogged determination and a will to go beyond style and achieve substance.
Sadly, these qualities seem to be lacking with Sarkozy. Ever since he arrived at the Elysée Palace he has seemed overly obsessed with his image, increasing his PR team to a size previously unheard of but commensurate with the man's ego, inversely proportional to his physical size (the Napoleon syndrome.) Jetting around whenever a world crisis loomed but strangely unable to produce any concrete progress on the major issues facing 21-century France. He was elected on a wave of enthusiasm for his can-do, go-getter attitude and straight talking so different from his predecessor and nemesis, Jacques Chirac. But the French soon saw through his self-obsessed behavior: one of his first decisions was to triple his salary delivering on his increased-purchasing-power election promise - at least for...himself! And since then it's been a lot of noise made in France, Europe, the wider world, but with little to show for it back home. Voters can tell a fraud when they see one, and that was the main message they sent last Sunday.
A British statesman once said that "a week is a long time in politics." Let alone two years. Many things can happen in the run up to the 2012 presidential elections in the US and France. Obama may later this year get the equivalent of Sarko's election rout with the mid-term elections. Sarkozy may suddenly carry out reforms (none less than to his own style) that will make him not only popular again but deliver gains to his subjects, while the Socialist party may either implode or fall back to its fratricidal wars .
But, I have my doubts. I think that the pattern and trend are clear and I'll make the following predictions. And remember you read it here first: Obama will get reelected while Sarkozy will be sent packing. The latter prediction will in turn call for another one: Carla Bruni, shorn of the fun of staying in presidential homes and flying in presidential jets, will also dump him. Sad ending for a sad little man.
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