I have a new theory of democratic politics. It was a photograph in the print edition of the Times recently beside reports on the US elections, just after Barack Obama finally put the matter of the Democratic nomination beyond doubt by clinching the last primaries. Obama was pictured riding a bicycle along a suburban street in, for him, casual clothing. (Here, by the way, is a man who looks great in a suit but who needs to find out fast how to wear a pair of jeans that don’t look as though they were bought for him by a female relative.)
There was no relation between the news story and the picture; no comment on his bike-riding. This was just some smart cookie in the Obama campaign’s idea of giving the wire agencies a good photo opportunity.
Because – and here’s my theory – it is a rule of democratic politics that you cannot get elected unless you ride a bike. This may need some refinement before they start teaching it on political science courses, but consider this: how many dictators can you think who allow themselves to be seen on a bike?
That’s a rhetorical question, thank you. The point is, they don’t, because they consider it beneath their dignity; it is what ordinary people do, and dictators don’t need to curry favour with them because they have no need for popular approval. But if you are in the game of democratic politics, you have to ride a bike. It shows you are down with the peeps, that you have the common touch.
Look back at Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. Both provided the press pack with copious chances to snap them while riding bikes, both became the most successful election-winning politicians of their eras. Then we had George Bush, who is no mean mountainbiker. Or possibly, quite a mean one. OK, he probably should have spent more time running the country and less riding around his ranch. And OK, he was a pretty reckless and gung-ho style of rider because he stacked his bike at least a couple of times we know about – and perhaps there was a lesson for us all there. But hey, he got elected. Sort of.
What about John Kerry, you ask: he rode a bike, but did he get elected, no siree. True, but he made a tactical error. He let it be known that he rode a racing bike, and racing cyclists are snobs. It’s true, we are. So the “elitist” tag stuck. People can sense that stuff, you know.
And that’s why it was good to see Obama on a really clunky town bike – with a tow-bar for a kid’s trailer-bike even. Let me tell you, a cyclist like Kerry would sooner eat his inner tubes than fit one of those to his bike.
Now, in the UK, we see David Cameron, the most celebrated cyclist in British politics – after Boris Johnson, recently elected London mayor (QED!) – riding high in the polls, so to speak, while Gordon Brown is heading for electoral meltdown. Cameron’s bike habit communicates that he’s a man of the street, even if his paperwork is chauffeur-driven.
But Brown on a bicycle? It’s like trying to imagine him holding a beer or telling a joke and it seeming spontaneous. Sure, his advisors could put him on a bike in front of the press, but you just know that he’d look as unhappy and unnatural as, well, he always does.
So, my prediction for November is that Obama will beat McCain and, in the final analysis and no matter what anyone says, it’ll be the bike wot won it.
Are you reading this, John?
No? Good.
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