David Cameron's supporters seem determined to become the sort of angry joke Obama's supporters are. They cannot cry racism every time somebody attacks the Boy's politics but there is plenty of shrill complaining. Accusations of mud-slinging, extremism, the usual europhobia (whatever that might mean), unseemly gloating (on the part of UKIP) and party disloyalty (for unhappy Conservatives) are being slung right, left and centre, though mostly right.
I have news for these people. Politicians can and must be criticized and even attacked on political matters; prevarication needs to be shown up for what it is; and very many people feel that they have given the Conservatives their last chance on matters European. Stop screeching and start thinking. Why are you in this mess? How can you get out of it.?
Besides, this is no time to start imitating Obama or the Obamabots. The election results from across the Pond would indicate that the voters are not happy. Republicans have won gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, retaking the states by susbtantial margins. The President had campaigned personally in both states. But then, he also went to Copenhagen to campaign for Chicago in the Olympic bondoogle.
In NY-23 an unknown independent conservative not only managed to push the very left-wing official Republican candidate out, but also came within three points of winning the election. Despite the sudden flurry of support from the White House and the former Republican candidate (who showed her true colours and embarrassed the GOP leadership very quickly) the Democrat, Bill Owens, won on a thin majority. A majority is a majority, thin or not, but yesterday's elections are not happy ones for the Democrats or for the man who seems to have believed his own hype. Mind you, as Michelle Malkin points out, this is no time for the Republican establishment to gloat either.
Just to show how very gauche the White House is, in its political image-making, "White House officials insisted that Mr Obama would be watching a basketball game and would not pay any attention to the results coming in". Gubernatorial elections in the United States matter. To display such contempt (whether genuine or not) for the electoral process will annoy the people even more.
This is not a good time for the Toryboys of both sexes to imitate Obama's team. Contempt for the electorate followed by whining and spiteful attacks on all critics is a bad recipe for political success.
Some additional information:
ReplyDeleteIn NY-23, the combined efforts of the Republican Party at a National and State level managed to hand to the Democrats a seat in a part of New York State which had been Republican since 1871 (according to USA Today). The Democrat vote rose from 29% to 50% albeit on a turnout which was 40% of that in 2008.
And the Democrats easily retained the CA-10 (California, 10th District) seat being contested yesterday as well.
Nick (from New York today)
Well the last Republican in NY-23 was definitely a RINO, so they have not gone very far. The GOP behaved incredibly stupidly there and must have contributed to the low turn-out.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update, Nick (in New York, grrr). Not all bad news for the Dems but not exactly a night to be pleased about. And Obama thinking that a baseball game was more important, whether it was true or not, is seriously stupid.
Helen,
ReplyDeleteIf Obama was watching a game last night it can't have been baseball (there wasn't any on). And if he was watching basketball, his favourite sport, it wouldn't have lasted long enough for him not to be able to watch the election results too. Fox News apparently suggested he watched the HBO Documentary on his election victory, but even that may be false:
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/11/04/obama-watched-documentary-last-night-nope-fox-botched-this-one/
Oh, and a further update on CA-10. Apparently the Democratic victor there (California's Lieutenant Governor) is a strong supporter of Obama's health care plan, and his opponent was a strong critic. Maybe that district has a large proportion of retirees and that explains the Democrats' success. For sure, the usual Obama coalition (young people and miniorities) are not as interested in the health care debate as other sections of the population.
And Obama still has a positive job approval rating: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
Nick
It seems to me that support for Obama is down to the religious fanatics more than politics, Im not sure about the retiree bit, they have realised that they will be badly served by his healthcare take over, more likely hispanic and ethnic/late teen support.It sure is a shame about the conservative in NY23, as for TV perhaps he ws watching V?
ReplyDeleteAs for UK politicians, it seems luck to me that Blair got rid of the death penalty for treason (ok the EU made him do it, actually how about tricking Cameron into bringing the death penalty back for killing police and kids, what would Brussels do then?)
Thanks for that Nick. Are you not in New York any more. The bit about the game was in the newspapers. It may have been nonsense but I thought it was a silly statement to make. the job approval rating seems to change from day to day and depending what you see. Rasmussen has, on the whole, been tracking negative trends.
ReplyDeleteChris, not sure what capital punishment has to do with anything here. And why for the murdre of police officers? Are they of greater importance than the rest of the population?
Hi Helen, I just got back to Brussels 3 hours ago. Pretty intense trip what with all that was going on in NY the past 10 days.
ReplyDeleteI was actually staying in a relatively affluent commuter suburb on the New Jersey side. Seems that the hardest hit in the economy were those enterprises which had opened or expanded more recently. Visited a small brand new shopping mall next to my hotel where about half of the 15 or so shops had closed down. On the other hand, more established enterprises seemed to be weathering the slowdown. Whilst I was out there, Warren Buffett bought a railroad for 28 billion, and the stock markets were reporting a lot of good economic news in terms of manufacturing orders ... but employment news is still shaky and people are worrign about what will happen when the stimulus money runs out.
Nick
PS - I went to the Metropolitan Opera 4 times. At 50 pounds a performance it's really cheap compared with Covent Garden
can we just be ourself?
ReplyDelete