Change you can believe in

In an interview with The Spectator last September, Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, advanced the following paradoxical political principle: ‘What we have tried to do is make sure people understand that you need experience to bring about change.’ To translate: in order to usher in the new, it helps to be old — or at least to have been round the political block.

The thrilling start to the US presidential primary season has revolved around the (often infuriatingly vague) notion of ‘change’, and the question of who is best placed to implement it. Which of the candidates, in practice, truly personifies the clean break with the Bush years that the American electorate seems to crave?

Barack Obama’s mantra — ‘Change you can believe in’ — reflects his contention that the shift must be generational, and the next President fresh and unsullied. ‘They want me to stew in Washington and boil all of the hope out of me,’ says the Illinois Senator, cunningly presenting his youth and inexperience as an advantage rather than a potential weakness.