Politics: Who wants to be our Obama?

The clearer Obama's victory became, the more Israel's PM hopefuls started sounding like him.

By JPOSTLEO GIOSUÈCOM
obama girl 248.88 (photo credit: AP)
obama girl 248.88
(photo credit: AP)
Even before US president-elect Barack Obama made his historic victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park Wednesday morning Israel time, the three candidates who hope to be his counterpart here had all started to sound remarkably like him.
On the campaign trail for Kadima's municipal candidates, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made a point of repeatedly using the words "change" and "hope" that Obama utilized so successfully. She didn't quite use Obama's "Yes, we can" mantra, but she came close when she said that the outpouring of support for Obama from voters who had been fed up with politics convinced her that "it can happen here, too."
Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu made an effort to paint himself as the real candidate of change in his press conference welcoming former minister Bennie Begin back to politics on Tuesday. He differentiated the Likud's policies from those of Kadima, and said Begin best represented the "different kind of politics" that has become Livni's campaign slogan.
And Labor chairman Ehud Barak, who now has the advantage of having a name associated with a winner, compared himself to his American namesake when justifying his poor poll results by noting that even Obama's campaign didn't take off immediately.
Strategists for all three candidates in the February 10 race say they did not intend to copy from Obama's campaign, because the target audience, the media and the election system here are all so different. Each emphasized that his candidate had been using Obamaesque messages long before they became popular.
"We're not turning Tzipi Livni into Barack Obama," Kadima strategist Lior Chorev says. "Without connection to Obama, she represents change, and differentiates herself from Netanyahu and Barak in her personality as the candidate of integrity, and in ideology with policies that are neither Begin-Feiglin, nor 'give it all away.'"
"Mimicking the American election is wrong," adds Netanyahu's bureau chief, Ari Harow. "The problems with Kadima started long before the American election. The people of Israel have been demanding change since the Second Lebanon War two and a half years ago."
"We didn't need Obama to teach us that Netanyahu's policies will lead to a diplomatic deadlock," says Barak spokesman Ronen Moshe.
But all three campaigns say they have learned lessons from Obama's successes, which will be implemented over the next few months.
Chorev says Livni will have different campaigns for different sectors, learning from how Obama "microsegmented the population" to maximize voter turnout.
Moshe says Labor will emphasize its economic policies, which he says are similar to Obama's, unlike Netanyahu's, which he compared to Republican candidate John McCain's. He says the US race proved that "socioeconomic solidarity wins elections," especially in times of financial crisis.
Netanyahu strategist Ronnie Rimon concludes that "the lesson of the American election was that when a leader fails, you don't let his party stay in power."
He says that message will be a big part of his campaign.
An MK who supports Netanyahu suggests Obama's victory will help him, because the public realizes that since there could be US pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians, Israel needs a right-wing government to "balance out Obama."
But Netanyahu himself would never use that argument, because he wants to build a positive relationship with the new president. Several months ago, he personally instructed Likud MKs not to criticize Obama or praise McCain in the press, despite their natural inclinations to do so.
Netanyahu made a point of being the first Israeli politician to congratulate Obama, sending him a telegram saying he was "looking forward to working closely with him to take a fresh look at the problems of the region, and to find new ideas to help build a better and hopeful future for all of us."
The letter was a preemptive move by Netanyahu, who knew that Kadima and Labor would use Obama's victory as an excuse to attack him, and suggest that the policies and mentality of Obama and Netanyahu are so different that it would harm Israel's relationship with the US if the Likud leader were elected.
Indeed, hours later, Livni hinted at Netanyahu when she spoke about Obama's victory and warned that "if Israel puts itself in a corner and is seen as rejecting diplomatic processes, we could enter an era that is less good than the current one."
Livni was later joined by Labor MKs, who called Netanyahu a "Republican," and said that Israel cannot be seen as going in the opposite direction of countries around the world where social democratic parties were taking over.
"It would be a missed opportunity if we elect Netanyahu after they voted for Obama," Labor MK Ophir Paz-Pines said. "Netanyahu's English is fluent, but they still won't understand each other. Obama will try to advance the peace process from day one, and he can do it, because he has more trust from the Arab world than his predecessor. Then Netanyahu would say no to the Saudi peace plan, no to dividing Jerusalem, no to withdrawing from the Golan. That's why it's so important for the center-left bloc to win our election."
But the strategists for Kadima and Labor say they do not intend to use such arguments in their campaigns. Moshe says he does not want to make assumptions about what Obama's views are after months of delivering messages decided by his campaign team.
Kadima strategist Eyal Arad says he does not need Obama to attack Netanyahu. "Obama won't be part of the strategy," he says. "If Mccain had won, does that mean we should have elected Bibi? What nonsense. We need to pick a leader based on what's good for Israel."