This trend could be labeled with the code word "Kadima," even though it does not lead us "forward" one jot, because the ideological fog that has settled behind the name that Ariel Sharon's aides concocted has replaced the "Labor Alignment" as the supermarket of ideas. For each party, the glue that held its members together was the maintenance of power. The horrifying decline of the Labor Party - and the dramatic weakening of Likud which preceded it - is a clear result of this process. Who needs another power-hungry, line-blurring centrist party when another such faction has already formed the government? And who today is capable of distinguishing between Yuli Tamir of Labor and Meir Sheetrit, formerly of Likud? From the public's standpoint, both are ministers in a Kadima government. It is doubtful whether Likud can rehabilitate itself, but it is clear that the Labor Party's woeful uselessness is fast becoming complete. During the last elections, veteran Mapainiks defected to Kadima because they could not accept the notion that a mustachioed Moroccan who entered politics straight out of a development town and the Histadrut labor federation would represent them. For the next election, the Labor members who cannot bear the thought of being led by a nouveau riche army general, one prone to constant bickering with his advisers and who has made some boneheaded statements, will also join Kadima. Peretz's social democratic doctrine and Ehud Barak's insubordination as well as his secret alliances with the settlers played almost no part in the decision. Erstwhile Labor supporters will vote Kadima only if it is headed by Tzipi Livni, not Shaul Mofaz. And it is not because of his views. From a political standpoint, Livni is portrayed as a pragmatist because she devotes time and effort to the painstaking negotiations with the Palestinians. Yet this is not the reason people will vote for her. She herself has said that the traditional left-right divide is outdated, and that whoever has to make the next critical decisions will find that the content and ultimate outcome of the talks are identical (unless one of those involved in the negotiations is Avigdor Lieberman). So why vote for her? For personal reasons. Livni, whose admirers tell us that her being a woman makes her more "civilian" (a baseless claim, but the reasoning speaks to the emotions and is thus difficult to argue with), is painted as the antithesis of the bellicose army generals Barak and Mofaz. She is depicted as the opposite of those who make grandiose promises a la Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu; the opposite of those wealth-amassing hedonists Barak, Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert; a welcome change from all the chatterboxes mentioned above. Voters apparently will prefer voting for the least-hated choice. Ostensibly, her opponents are also driven by personal motives. They say she has no experience (in other words, she is a woman); that she cannot manage the affairs of state (see the telephone at 3 A.M., and because she is a woman); and that if elected, she must enlist the services of Barak, whose area of expertise is defense, and Netanyahu, who understands economics well (clearly because, after all, she is a woman); and because her views are unclear (thank God, it is not only because she is a woman). If Livni is elected, forms the next government and manages to rule wisely - a task she appears capable of - it will mark the final victory of the new politics, the apolitical politics. Like Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, who attracted many voters from the left, Livni has a chance to be elected as the head of a "faux centrist" right-wing party. And when this happens, and Labor is finally swallowed up into Kadima, it will finally make room for a real leftist movement, a social democratic party whose economic, social and cultural views would naturally compliment a dovish diplomatic stance. One may hope that Labor, whose fingerprints are historically on the settlement enterprise, and Meretz, which has turned into a sectarian mini-faction, will exit the stage. The forces that seek to shackle Livni from the right (economically and diplomatically) will be balanced by a new political force that is genuinely left-wing.

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