Skip to main content

5 November, 2008

Charles M Blow writing an op-ed piece in the NY Times:

"I’ve studied the polls and the electoral map for months, and I no longer believe that John McCain can win. Unless Barack Obama slips up, Jeremiah Wright shows up or a serious national security emergency flares up, Obama will become the 44th president of the United States.*

The wayward wizards of Wall Street delivered the election to Obama by pushing the economy to the verge of collapse, forcing leery voters to choose between their pocketbooks and their prejudices. McCain delivered it to Obama with his reckless pick of Sarah Palin. That stunt made everything that followed feel like a stunt, tarnishing McCain’s reputation and damaging his credibility so that when he went negative it backfired. And, some radical rabble among McCain’s supporters delivered it to Obama by mistaking his political rallies for lynch mobs.

This perfect storm of poor judgments has set the stage for an Obama victory. It’s over. Fast forward to Nov. 5.

President-elect Obama (yes, get used to it) could wake up that morning as one of the most powerful presidents in recent American history. Not only is his party likely to maintain control of both houses of the Congress, it could dramatically strengthen its hand.

According to a New York Times/CBS News poll released this week, the percentage of people who say that they approve of the way their own member of Congress is handling his or her job has never been lower and the percentage who say they disapprove has only been higher once before: on the verge of the Republican Revolution in 1994 when the Republicans picked up 54 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate. But this time voters seem to be more disenchanted with Republicans than with Democrats. In November 1994, the Republican Party’s favorable rating was 54 percent and the Democrats’ was 44 percent. In the most recent poll, the Democrats’ favorable rating was 52 percent and the Republicans’ was 37 percent.

Some think that the Democrats could even pass the magic 60 mark in the Senate, providing them with a filibuster-proof majority. The last president to enjoy that advantage was Jimmy Carter.

Add to that the possibility of Obama appointing several justices to the Supreme Court (Carter didn’t appoint any) and the probability of him receiving an enthusiastic embrace from the international community, and we could see an administration unlike any we’ve seen for more than a generation.

Obama would make history by simply assuming office. But then, the question of governance: could this gifted, 47-year-old, first-term senator with a razor-thin political résumé harness his enormous power to push through an agenda that would meet our daunting challenges and secure our future?

History will be the judge, but on Nov. 5, it’s on."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reading the Chilcot Inquiry Report more closely

Most commentary on the Chilcot Inquiry Report of and associated with the Iraq War, has been "lifted" from the Executive Summary.   The Intercept has actually gone and dug into the Report, with these revelations : "THE CHILCOT REPORT, the U.K.’s official inquiry into its participation in the Iraq War, has finally been released after seven years of investigation. Its executive summary certainly makes former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the British push for war, look terrible. According to the report, Blair made statements about Iraq’s nonexistent chemical, biological, and nuclear programs based on “what Mr. Blair believed” rather than the intelligence he had been given. The U.K. went to war despite the fact that “diplomatic options had not been exhausted.” Blair was warned by British intelligence that terrorism would “increase in the event of war, reflecting intensified anti-US/anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim world, including among Muslim communities in the

An unpalatable truth!

Quinoa has for the last years been the "new" food on the block for foodies. Known for its health properties, foodies the world over have taken to it. Many restaurants have added it to their menu. But, as this piece " Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? " from The Guardian so clearly details, the cost to Bolivians and Peruvians - from where quinoa hails - has been substantial. "Not long ago, quinoa was just an obscure Peruvian grain you could only buy in wholefood shops. We struggled to pronounce it (it's keen-wa, not qui-no-a), yet it was feted by food lovers as a novel addition to the familiar ranks of couscous and rice. Dieticians clucked over quinoa approvingly because it ticked the low-fat box and fitted in with government healthy eating advice to "base your meals on starchy foods". Adventurous eaters liked its slightly bitter taste and the little white curls that formed around the grains. Vegans embraced quinoa as

Climate change: Well-organised hoax?

There are still some - all too sadly people with a voice who are listened to - who assert that climate change is a hoax. Try telling that to the people of Colorado who recently experienced horrendous bushfires, or the people of Croatia suffering with endless days of temps of 40 degrees (and not much less than 30 at night time) some 8-10 degrees above the norm. Bill McKibben, take up the issue of whether climate change is a hoax, on The Daily Beast : Please don’t sweat the 2,132 new high temperature marks in June—remember, climate change is a hoax. The first to figure this out was Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe, who in fact called it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” apparently topping even the staged moon landing. But others have been catching on. Speaker of the House John Boehner pointed out that the idea that carbon dioxide is “harmful to the environment is almost comical.” The always cautious Mitt Romney scoffed at any damage too: “Scientists will fig