"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

A review in Foreign Affairs of David Remnick's new biography of Obama, The Bridge, refers to him as "the first Democratic presidential candidate to win a majority of the popular vote since Lyndon Johnson in 1964."

This is manifestly untrue. Jimmy Carter got over 50% of the popular vote in 1976. I know that no one in the world but me likes President Carter or thinks he was a good president, but in a year when no fewer than ten candidates received over 40,000 votes for president, Carter won not only the electoral vote, not only a plurality of the popular vote, but the majority of the popular vote.

Get it right, FA!

ETA: The review itself is still worth reading.

Well, on the whole, I think it's what everyone expected. The one thing that's striking in purely political terms is that Labour did so poorly that it's nearly impossible for them to form a coalition that would hold a majority in Parliament. Given that the DUP are never going to combine with Labour and that Sinn Fein never take their seats, even if Labour somehow forged an alliance with the LibDems, that might not be enough to drag them into majority.

Of course, the other thing that's striking is that while the LibDems look to have gotten 23% of the vote and increased their national percentage from the last election, they actually suffered a net loss to only 9% of the seats in the Commons. Clearly the electoral system is broken and needs reform if the views of the British people are that badly represented.

The big problem with *any* political process, of course, is that the people who design and implement deeply unpopular policies, or who simply implement questionable policies very badly, are still the ones running their party (until after a serious election loss), so there's rarely a way to say "I don't like the guys who've been running things, but I want people who will do what they *said* they were going to do, instead of people who've _announced_ they're going to do the opposite." I imagine if Old Labour, or Future Labour, or anything other than New Labour had been on the menu, the Tories wouldn't have made the huge inroads they did. It seems that the New Labour move away from the old socialist policies and near-Soviet economic theory of the 1970s and 1980s, the preserved all the elements of government intrusiveness that people dislike about that model without doing any of the things (effective economic management, financial regulation, protecting public health and safety, providing necessary public services, building a strong and cohesive society) that socialism ought to be able to do.

Instead, now we'll have the Conservative Party that openly worships big business, hates government service programs, and is just as intrusive, if not moreso, into citizens' private lives. :-(

And, on a tangential subject, does anyone really believe that UK Trident serves a practical purpose in this day and time? Wouldn't scrapping it and cancelling its replacement save 5% of the national defense budget and serve as a masterful example of first-world disarmament without imperilling the UK's safety one iota?

A poll for those of you able to vote in today's general election. ( Read more... )

I am rapidly losing any belief, not only in the Obama team's *ability* to win the campaign, but in their *desire* to win.

US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has announced that Joe Biden will be his running mate in November's election. ... Mr Biden, a 65-year-old veteran lawmaker, is highly respected on foreign policy issues.

Joe Biden is not "respected" by anyone. He's a joke, a Washington punchline.

He's also an old white guy from the northeast. He's establishment with a capital "eh".

A VP choice doesn't mean much in and of itself, but it's an opportunity for the candidate to reach out and appeal to people who feel he's missing something in his campaign and his personality. And to reinforce the basic themes of the existing campaign. Biden doesn't do that.

Yes, he has a reputation as a blowhard on foreign policy issues, but that's not because anyone thinks he *knows* much about them is is particularly intelligent. It's because he talks a lot.

He has no appeal outside his region (hell, probably no name recognition, other than negative). He doesn't appeal to working class voters. He doesn't appeal to the moderates, the great undecided 10-15% lying between the parties. He doesn't bring Obama strength in a contest region. He doesn't bring Obama more credibility with Latino or women voters.

He's a liar. And a cheat. He's a party man, an old-time hack. He brings a taint to the ticket, not a luster.

About the only positive thing one can say is that there's no chance he will outshine Obama. Is that really necessary? Is Obama that insecure?

I don't think this is the thing that will tip the scales, but there have been a steady accumulation of small failures and missteps, and this is the first really large misstep.

The campaign is now McCain's to lose, I think.

EDIT: I'm astonished at how calmly some of you guys are taking this. I hope you're right, but I think this is a blunder that signals that the Obama campaign has passed its high water mark and is heading rapidly down.

I was chatting with a friend at work about the coming election and the prevalence of, erm, sudden announcements from the Bush administration when a political distraction or advantage was needed. ( Keep reading below for a challenge )