The US Election

[scottycelt]

As regards a collapse, it will probably come sooner rather than later, but won't necessarily have too harmful an effect on the UK. That's partly because, not being part of the ECB/Euro system, we still have the ability to micro-manage our economy as best suits us, rather than having to fit in with the "single size" fits all idea, which, as most of us with brains foretold years ago, would cause the problems that we are currently seeing across the channel.

In the real world, any collapse of the Euro would have a terrible effect on the world economy (especially a country like the UK), and also therefore world financial markets which hate instability with a vengeance ...

Disappointingly for our currently gleeful Eurosceptic friends (but thankfully for the rest of us) it just isn't going to happen!

A huge project like the Euro was always going to experience 'teething troubles', though I do agree that some of these could easily have been avoided in the first place. As I've said before, if the UK wasn't fit to join then countries such as Greece certainly weren't! It wasn't the predictably scornful Europhobes that should have been listened to, but experienced and objective pro-Europeans like David Owen!

Nevertheless the Euro will not only 'survive' it will emerge from the current difficulties all the stronger and more powerful and eventually the UK will be obliged to join, not out of a sudden bout of pro-Europeanism, but due entirely to sheer self-interest.

Oh, I do hope we are all still alive and kicking and contributing to this forum in twenty years time ...

[Mahlerei]

Re: US elections

That is a surprise. The upside is that if Santorum does win the nomination Obama is more likely to get a second term (or so the Pox polls seem to indicate).

[Lateralthinking1]

You mean that you are not won over by this? -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3bYBkGgRCE

(Footnote : Today's quiz - How many non-white people can you find in this campaign film?)

[Lateralthinking1]

.....Maine Caucus Result:

Romney - 39%
Paul - 36%
Santorum - 18%
Gingrich - 6%



Joseph Smith, Founder of the Mormon Church

"Great opposition and much persecution followed the believers of authenticity; but it had now come to pass that truth had sprung out of the earth; and righteousness had looked down from heaven—so we feared not our opponents, knowing that we had both truth and righteousness on our side."

George Romney, Presidential Candidate 1968

“I didn't say that I didn't say it. I said that I didn't say that I said it. I want to make that very clear.”

[Lateralthinking1]

.......Could this man be the next President of the United States?



Today's polls show a new clear Obama lead.

Number of percentage points he is ahead of his rivals

Romney - 6
Santorum - 8
Paul - 11
Gingrich - 18

Footnote - The Michigan primary later this month is crucial for Romney. His father was Governor of the state. In the opinion polls there, he is trailing Santorum by 15 percentage points. 62% of Republicans now want "none of the above".

[Lateralthinking1]

LATEST

Tuesday Opinion Polls - Romney has closed the gap in Michigan. Level with Santorum in one poll. Slightly ahead in another.

Mysterious billionaires starting to give money to Santorum. Everyone else is targeting him, seeing him as not electable.

Widespread anger that he once said that women are capable of flying only smaller planes. Not the housewives' choice.

75% of all donations from armed forces personnel nationally have been sent to Ron Paul. A military coup would see him in.

[Boilk]

.......Could this man be the next President of the United States?

No, since the next president can only be someone who isn't the current incumbent.
And technically, a successive win would count as a single 8-year term

[Op. XXXIX]

Mysterious billionaires starting to give money to Santorum.

I say give him all the money he needs. What a dream candidate for Obama in November!

Recent polls suggest that Santorum would probably loose 35 states, so he can kiss his 270 electoral votes goodbye.

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you for these comments. Ron Paul's new ad suggesting Santorum is to the left of Tony Benn. Or something like that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgNJBdTaKE8

To quote the phrase, only in America!

Does anyone think that this man will be the next Vice President of the United States? I don't.



Photo : Joe Biden

[John Skelton]

Letter from America http://www.unkant.com/2012/02/letter-from-america.html

[Lateralthinking1]

Thank you John Skelton. Much appreciated. Incredibly, I have always had a sort of vision for this thread. It is that the US Election is like a sport. Waving flags, wearing scarves, cheering and jeering, heads in hands. That kind of thing. There is no censorship on reality but bringing it in seems almost disrespectful.



Your article makes for interesting and grim reading. It could happen here. I know both from direct experience and our "free press" that enough of our movers and shakers have the character to live with it. "It" being massive homelessness and unemployment, minimal social security and imprisonment on an industrial scale. A lot would work hard to achieve it.

June Hautot might be "Woman of the Week" for many mortals. She is mine but while her little encounter made for good television there was the usual sweep-of-the-barnet brush off. As Quentin Letts so delightfully writes in the Mail - "The BBC and other left-wing outlets have been banging away like busy Brazilian bongo drummers, signalling that Lansley is a goner. But are they right?"



Is Obama genuinely concerned about the ongoing Bush legacy or would he be as happy as larry just to be re-elected? If you think the former, "vote" Democrat. If not, then you are in the same predicament as the vast majority of American voters.

Long before summer - when nuclear conflict will feature in the Olympics for the first time - one of the Republicans has to convince them he is the new Messiah. As it is, Gingrich appears to have left for the moon. The other three are incapable of managing a blooper.

[Serial_Apologist]

To an unreconstructed marxist, all this figures.

But it's still hard getting ones head around the fact that The Land Of Freedom, with all the cultural and inventive nous that is supposed to signify to those who, all my lifetime, have written off "socialism" as inimical to encouragement of "moral backbone", "independent thinking", "integrity" and "natural born leadership qualities", can only come up with the kinds of twits for top positions Peter Sellers was supposed to have lampooned in Dr Strangelove. This should say a lot to the masses, possibly majority of people here and there who wholeheartedly swallow procapitalist ideology - but they've probably overdosed too long on the mythologies.

[Lateralthinking1]

But it's still hard getting ones head around the fact that The Land Of Freedom.....can only come up with the kinds of twits for top positions Peter Sellers was supposed to have lampooned in Dr Strangelove. This should say a lot to the masses, possibly majority of people here and there who wholeheartedly swallow procapitalist ideology...

I haven't got the figures to hand. However, there is evidence that large numbers don't swallow the ideology. Many don't vote and others say that they aren't strongly in favour of any party or candidate.

I sense that people are more supportive of capitalism than our "democracy". Most will moan like mad about the inequality and the excesses. Few with money in their pockets are so disillusioned that they sit at home when they could be shopping. Sadly, even truer democracy isn't the priority people perceive. Given the choice between democratic and efficient government, a lot would choose efficiency.

You have to have fortunes to be able to run for President. Here theoretically you could be a dustman and become Prime Minister. The reason why we have toffs is largely down to the political parties. Their ongoing success is mainly the fault of the electorate. If just a few million donated a tenner annually to an "anything but them" campaign, we could diminish their power within a couple of years.

[Lateralthinking1]

Failing. And should those fingers really be on the nuclear button?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/23/romney-michigan-republicans-arizona-debate

New candidates at this late stage?

If it happens, no one will be surprised, and yet it would still be extraordinary.

[Lateralthinking1]

America - 24 February 2012

Zeitgeist - Anyone but Obama, Romney, Santorum, Paul, Gingrich

Late entrants?

Here is the man huge numbers want:


Picture - Mike Huckabee

And here is the man they could get:



Picture - Chris Christie