The race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination remains unresolved, with just a few primaries left. Obama appears to have an insurmountable margin. However, neither candidate is likely to gain the 2,025 delegates required to secure the nomination. This sets the stage for an all-out fight at the August convention, as unelected “super-delegates” will probably decide the outcome.

Hillary Clinton, trailing in delegates, can only win the nomination by trying to fatally injure Obama’s campaign to convince the super-delegates he cannot win against John McCain. Her campaign has used thinly-veiled racism to attack Obama. Furthermore, she made the astounding claim that only she and… John McCain are “qualified” to act on national security, not Barack Obama.

Incredibly, the Obama campaign found itself on the defensive on issues such as NAFTA in a state like Ohio, which has been devastated by job losses because of the “free trade agreements” signed by Bill Clinton’s White House.

The Clintons have a huge rap sheet of attacks against working people, from welfare rights to democratic rights, NAFTA, selling out on healthcare reform, and supporting Bush’s war. Yet, Obama’s camp showed its timidity toward the establishment by refusing to go on the attack against the Clintons’ record, largely because they don’t disagree with these policies.

Obama’s Politics
Obama’s spectacular primary victories were a reflection of the increasing rejection of the Republicans’ policies over the past seven years among large sections of the population. Obama has electrified youth and African-Americans, and is organizing rallies of tens of thousands with his message of “change” and “hope.”

There is a sense of history being made and of another barrier being demolished, with an African-American so close to winning the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Obama, much more than Clinton, is able to appear as a Washington outsider who represents real change, as well as appearing to be “antiwar” because he expressed opposition to the war while Clinton was supporting Bush’s war drive.

Aside from the hopes for a better future projected onto his candidacy by millions of Americans, Obama is very vague when it comes to putting forward specific social reforms or actual changes. In reality, Obama is a thoroughly big business candidate, having been vetted by the corporate elite that control U.S. politics. If elected, he will bitterly disappoint his supporters by carrying out pro-rich, anti-worker policies.

Obama is not the product of the civil rights struggles or any real political movement. In many ways, his political origins have more in common with Colin Powell, Bush’s former Secretary of State, and a whole new generation of black leaders who have been loyal servants of the establishment.

This alone, however, does not explain the sudden shift of a large section of the political establishment behind a man who, four years ago, was in the Illinois state senate. Obama’s political backers include Senator Ted Kennedy and such pillars of the establishment as former National Security Advisor and Cold War hawk Zbigniew Brzezinski, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, The Los Angeles Times, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the U.S.

In the aftermath of U.S. imperialism’s debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, a growing section of the U.S. ruling class is looking at Obama as the multicultural face that can signal to the world a shift from the policies of Bush’s unilateralism into those that would combine selective military force (in the name of a “war on terrorism” against “rogue regimes”, etc.) with more diplomacy and the use of alliances.

In an editorial endorsing Obama, the Los Angeles Times commented: “An Obama presidency would present as a distinctly American face a man of African descent…No public campaign could do more than Obama’s mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world” (2/3/08).

Contradictory Features
There are contradictory features reflected in the Obama phenomenon. On the one side is the genuine hope for change felt by millions of working people, while on the other side there is the desire of sections of the establishment to use Obama to create a more “acceptable face” to promote U.S. imperialism’s policies internationally.

Underlying the present political developments is a sharpening class polarization in U.S. society, which is compounded by a deepening economic crisis. This is fueling illusions that the Democratic Party and Obama represent some kind of “change.” This reflects a shift of consciousness to the left and is an anticipation of an increase in social struggles in the coming turbulent period of American politics.

In the absence of a real political alternative from the labor or antiwar movements, the mass of workers and youth will need to go through the experience of a Democratic presidency to dispel their illusion that the Democratic Party – a party owned lock, stock, and barrel by the corporate establishment – will affect changes to benefit working people and bring an end to the squandering of untold trillions in Iraq and other wars.

When these illusions are shattered, many more will begin to understand the necessity of building a serious movement of working people in the streets, as well as the need to break from the two parties of capitalism and build our own political party.

Growing Populism
As the primary fight heated up, both Clinton and Obama were forced to try to tap into the broad anti-corporate anger that exists among large sections of the working class and even the middle class.

In speeches in economically hard-hit states, like Wisconsin and Ohio where there have been massive job losses, Obama spoke about the enormous inequality that exists in the U.S. and the fact that the rich are getting richer while everyone else is struggling to get by. Obama called for “shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.”

His populist rhetoric provoked a reaction from the big business media, who warned Obama against stirring up “class warfare.” Clearly, the establishment press realizes there is a danger of the Obama campaign igniting the deep reservoir of social discontent.

The Democrats seem poised to make gains against the Republicans in Congress in 2008. Whoever gets elected president in 2008 will be faced with colossal crises, both at home and abroad. The Obama campaign, while fostering illusions of change and hope, is not the vehicle of social change that the liberals imagine, but signals the opening of a new period of political and social instability.