In spite of the fact the election in the USA is a long way off and the outcomes are just impossible to predict, the Russian political elite and its intellectual-propagandist service are doing preliminary estimation of whose victory would be more profitable. The results of this mental strain not being capable of influencing the choice to be made by American people, they still deserve our consideration. It is so because they can really affect our lives through the carried out foreign and home policy by our government.      

One may mark out the following hints and accents among the stuff spoken by the Kremlin’s propagandists. 

The senator John McCain, the Republican leader of the presidential race may turn out to be a convenient partner despite the fact he is associated with an image of classic Russia’s enemy from the Ronald Reagan’s epoch. This is likely especially considering the idea of another turning Russia into a besieged fortress – McCain would be just at the right place for such a case.     

Of course, millions of people are willing to listen about Russia standing up off her knees, and they are ready to grumble to the news reports about a next attempt by the insidious West to undermine the power, unity and territorial integrity of our country. But they wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice part of their incomes to the sacred altar of the struggle against “dark forces” and to allow the law enforcers to see into each aspect of their own private lives. 

But it’s going to be a horse of different color when a real enemy appears, who, differently from the current American administration only nominally condemning the Russian democracy, will really get interested with the state of democracy in Russia and will carry out a policy of containment in the international relations. In such a case no one would dare to speak ironically that the threats from beyond the sea are just an exaggeration. With such a context it would be undoubtedly easier to take the assets away in favor of the state corporations and to oppress the activities by those discordant, and to build up the “fortress” in accelerated pace. Of course, it would be possible to provide for special exiting facilities for some categories of high ranking people who think about and serve to state.     

The danger of this reasoning is that confrontation may turn into the real one out of the pretended-propagandist, and cause the real drama for the country whose resources are incomparable to those by the West, even considering our great energy resources. 

As for one of the Democratic leaders, Barak Obama, he is really perceived as a mysterious figure. His priorities not being clear, it’s difficult to say what kind of policy he would carry out. Of course, there is some concern about the fact that some people from his entourage have very strict attitude towards what is happening in Russia today. But at the end of the day, the contender himself behaves differently talking to different audiences. This means there would be always a chance to find right approaches in addressing the difficult problems. So we shall see.

And the aversion by Russian authorites to Hillary Clinton seems to be rather conscious. The matter is that Mrs. Clinton is a lot of embodiment of the “cursed 90’s” where Russia was a weak and moneyless country and had to carry out democratic reforms being pressurized from outer world, and to follow the West in the international sphere. Hillary is not only a symbol of those times, but her team is also made up of people who governed America in those years. So they might try to turn back the wheel of history. Besides, there are still a lot of friends of that team’s members in our politics, business and media.      

Well, that would be really an unpleasant perspective! This is why conjectures appear sounding like “not allowing Clintons to the White House could become a global project of 2008” (quotation from the interview by Mr. Pavlovsky). Of course, such appeals are ridiculous – thanks God it’s not the Kremlin’s political technologists to decide who will come to the White House – but they reflect rather exactly the emotional impulses and sore spots of some.  

The problem is not about the banal truth telling that authority must be able to work with any government elect by its people. The matter is that Russia’s foreign priorities (they are reflected indirectly in this Moscow-made casting of the oversea contenders) must not depend on aspirations by these or those top ranking groups who have their own interests in business and politics. The “by-group-articulated” interest must not be presented as a point of view of the whole nation.