Britain Watches the U.S. Primaries

...As for Bill Clinton, the British media have tended to concentrate on his personality and leave his policies a rather large unknown...

...Inevitably, there have been questions about what effect the Presidential election will have on the traditional cultural ties bet ween Britain and the U. S. Large numbers of Britons already regret that the ballyhoo characteristic of American campaigns—the inspirational music and the blessings from entertainment celebrities—has found its way into English politics...

...But it shouldn't have...

...The British media's coverage of the U.S...

...A correspondent for Britain's Independent Television News has suggested that despite his years in office, the real Bush remains elusive...

...It is not that the era of peace and security the President heralded after the Gulf War was ever considered a serious prospect in London...

...Thanks to this bombardment my English friend, Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...Presidential campaign has been so exhaustive it sometimes seems like a domestic event...

...Britons who normally keep a closer watch on foreign relations have meanwhile formed rather definite opinions about the candidates...

...But the intense coverage of the Presidential election is more revealing of British feelings than all the concern about cultural contamination...

...The BBC news departments and other major media organizations have made plans for comprehensive coverage of this summer's Democratic and Republican party conventions in New York and Texas, respectively...

...The London Independent speculates about whether President George Bush will continue to look to foreign policy as "a vote catcher...

...One acquaintance recalled that he had "an amiability about him which may have been...

...But he managed to carry it off with great charm...

...British newspapers have gone trawling for recollections from people who knew Clinton when he attended Oxford University in the late 1960s...

...Prime time television is regularly cluttered with L. A. Law, Cheers and Rose-anne, to name only a few popular shows, while the cinema houses feature Hollywood films almost exclusively...

...Throughout the campaign preceding Britain's general elections, imported terms like "soundbites," "big mo," "kickstart," and "spin doctor" have fallen trippingly from the lips of political correspondents...

...That is a substantial commitment, especially at a time when financial difficulties have necessitated an overall curtailment of operations...

...political scene...

...In academia, fear that the political correctness epidemic will migrate across the Atlantic is evident, as is a frequent distaste for American ideas...

...But he once was much respected and even admired for his strong internationalist posture...

...When he spoke of a New World Order, British cynics quipped that he had in mind a New World that would issue orders to the rest of the countries around the globe...

...The Financial Times analyzes the electorate's response to Pat Buchanan's Mercedes...

...In addition, changes in Bush's popularity ratings often make the front pages...

...The Daily Telegraph keeps its eye on "Candidate Moonbeam...

...The President's own comment that he would do anything to get re-elected, and a report of Reagan's observation that his successor doesn't stand for anything, have reinforced the impression...

...Neither is the case...

...The sentiments one hears expressed when the conversation turns to Bush are an example...

...According to the Sunday Times, the fellow students it was able to locate remember the 22-year-old Rhodes scholar as merely a beer-drinking, rugby-playing, stocky, affable young man...

...During a recent tour to promote his new book, The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama was received politely but with a touch of disdain—the way a man not properly dressed for dinner might have been greeted at the table in times when such things mattered more...

...Since this Englishman has never exhibited any particular interest in American affairs, that he had heard of Paul Tsongas, let alone knew of the former Massachusetts Senator's decision to withdraw from the race for the Democratic nomination, at first came as something of a surprise...

...Indeed, his campaign thus far has prompted some British reporters to conclude that the President is more of a poseur than a man of conviction...

...As a result, the general public in this country has become remarkably well-versed in the competition for the White House...

...Still, the hope existed that Washington's drive to establish a Pax Americana would commit the richest and most powerful nation extant to an active and effective foreign policy role...

...British correspondents in the United States have fanned out from New York and Washington to file stories from Atlanta, Detroit, Milwaukee, San Francisco, or wherever else the campaign takes them...

...Primaries BY NORMAN GELB London Two days after the Presidential primaries in Michigan and Illinois, a friend here telephoned to say, "I hear that the bloke with the funny name is calling it quits...

...Their membership in the European Community notwithstanding, Brits are not ready to be nudged out of their "special relationship" with the United States—or with things American...

...Perhaps this explains why the generous support Bush publicly proclaimed for John Major in Britain's election contest did not appear to have any impact on the electorate here...

...Although the election is still many months away, television, radio and quality newspapers in Britain are closely following the ups and downs of both the Democrats and the Republicans...

...Were he to occupy the Oval Office, some have argued, the United States might turn isolationist, or plunge into economic protectionism...

...The Guardian recounts the Arkansas Governor's "fobs...

...well, you know our idea of Americans being very loud and pumping your hand...

...Or some might assume that because the British have much closer kith-and-kin links with Canadians and Australians than with Americans, the internal affairs of the two Commonwealth countries draw the greatest attention...

...On the whole, people seem to understand that the demands of this year's election compel the candidates to focus on domestic matters...

...At the same time, the Governor's failure to project a familiarity with foreign policy issues, or a convincing determination to deal with them, has not gone unnoticed...

...In view of Britain's awkward yet crucial relations with the rest of the European Community, one might guess that politics in France and Germany are the predominant foreign interest of the press here...

...The following week the Prime Minister actually lost ground in the public opinion polls, but that had to do with domestic troubles...

...Unlike the enormously popular, story-telling Ronald Reagan, Bush never succeeded in tugging on heart strings...

...The economics journalist Norman Macrae believes that Clinton would provide little international leadership and "would run from tomorrow's Saddams...

...Nevertheless, the United States continues to be the foreign country that has the greatest influence here...

...Britons are being relentlessly fed detailed coverage of the current U.S...

...The London Times tells its readers that "this year's Democratic race is now down to two runners, Bill Clinton and his past...

...Now his image in Britain, as in the U.S., is taking a beat-ing...

...The Guardian and other papers have openly deplored his obvious obeisance to the extreme Right in the face of the pressures applied by the Buchanan camp...

...who otherwise probably would barely have been aware of the battle for the Democratic nomination, thought Tson-gas' withdrawal deserving of a phone call...

...This has occasioned broad alarms against importing American popular culture, generally looked upon as debasing or anarchic...

...Even London's tabloids report the significant developments, not merely the revelations of alleged peccancies that have plagued Clinton (though these have generated their fair share of copy and sizable revenues...

...Today, however, as British officials and pundits warn of the dangerous geopolitical wilderness created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, many here feel that Bush is not up to pursuing his own grand scheme...

...While some find his manner oily and off-putting, the sight of him on the hustings has elicited mostly approving comments...