Europe, Be Careful What You Ask For

[psomniferum]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-02/europe-be-careful-what-you-ask-for

Andrew Neil
Daily Beast


"Obama and the Democrats

Democrats should rule the roost in Washington with a bigger majority in the House and perhaps a 60-seat filibuster-beating tally in the Senate after Tuesday. But monopoly won’t necessarily make for harmony between Capitol Hill and the White House.

Congressional Democrats will be more leftish than at any time since the 1960s, and they will pressure Obama to move in their direction. His instinct may be to do so—he has been a liberal senator—but he will also have an eye on reelection in 2012, and that will keep dragging him back to the center."

~snip~

I also wanted to bring up the following quote after some recent talk about what Erica Jong recently said:

"The American Example

Finally, on an optimistic note, America has faith in its ability to renew itself. The Bush presidency, widely regarded as disastrous, hasn’t resulted in violence on the streets or disillusionment but an election that will break voting records, see a record number of people donating to a candidate, and producing one ticket led by a black American, the other containing a woman. Other countries, please note."

So, do we have faith, or have we simply shown restraint in recent elections?

[Joe Chi Minh]

1. No, the centre won't pull Obama back from what you are pleased to call a "leftish"

direction. What you call the "center" is, in terms of the civilised world, i.e. Western Europe, the far right.

As for your last sentence, Andrew, it seems to me that Erica Yong and you miss the point entirely: it is precisely because Bush's administration has been so catastrophic (and McCain promises to prolong its policies) that voting records are being broken - they're not Republican voters - and, maybe, also, that an African-American looks the people's overwhelming choice as President. A catastrophe is not an occasion for re-arranging deck-chairs to make patterns that are aestheticaly pleasing to a person even with the most pronounced bias in favour of one deck-chair school of art or another.

As for the lack of violence, I think photographs of crowds of 500,000 and 650,000 Obama supporters could be a slight deterrent. And have you and Ms Jong already forgotten the flying in of a plane-load of Brooks Brothers thugs bent on intimidating the vote-counters in the 2000 election in Florida?

And welcome to DU.

PS: I should have described Europe as semi-civilised. Ghandi would have a fit with his leg up if he saw me describe even Western Europe as civilised, though they did, at least, try to battle against the pressures of the maniacal neoliberal, would-be economists.