Did anyone notice we had an election? If you voted you will no doubt have been disappointed. Tory supporters didn’t get the clear mandate they wanted. Labour did better than some expected, but still got pushed out of Downing Street. The Lib Dems think they’ve done quite well by getting a few cabinet seats, but I suspect that in a few years’ time we’ll see that as a mistake and they’ll become even more obscure than they were before the election.
Nobody else really figured on the electoral radar, apart from the Greens who did a fantastic job of bagging a seat down in Brighton. The first of many, I hope.
The biggest winners, then, seem to have been the broadcasters, who have been camped out on the green outside Parliament for the last two weeks.
The BBC, as ever, is putting on the biggest show as it seems to have moved half of White City to Westminster and boxed it up in a big black spaceship. Sky, on the other hand, is having a little garden party and has cracked open the gazebo. ITV, too.
Kay Burley, from Dancing on Ice, interviews Ken Clarke, Secretary of State for Justice
The ITV gazebo (left) and the BBC’s glossy black spaceship (right)
Enjoy it while it lasts. I can’t see this staying online too long, considering all the copyright naughtyness going on, but it’s the best election broadcast of this year’s campaign.
And if you’ve not voted yet, get out there and do it.
Toe-curlingly fantastic.
Now that the US election is over and the Republicans have been comprehensively trounced, the talk has begun of who may run against the incumbent in 2012. Palin’s name is being bandied around with worrying regularity.
But it’s not all in favour. While her die-hard supporters would love her to run for the highest office in four years’ time, those in the party who dislike her way of working are finally starting to talk about what went on behind the scenes in this year’s campaign.
And why not? They have nothing more to lose now they’ve lost the presidency.
McCain, in his concession speech, said that the loss was all his own fault, perhaps because he knows he can never run again and his deputy has a chance of making it next time. According to Palin, meanwhile, saying she caused the failure of their campaign gives her too much credit.
‘I don’t think anybody should give Sarah Palin that much credit, that I would trump an economic time in this nation that occurred about two months ago, that my presence on the ticket would trump the economic crisis that America found itself in a couple of months ago and attribute John McCain’s loss to me,’ she said.
But clearly some believe she did have something to do with that loss, and now they’re starting to talk. About how she wouldn’t prepare for TV interviews, how she had tantrums at bad press reports, how she gave a briefing wearing just a towel and how she didn’t realise that Africa was a continent, not a country.
Even Fox news, which is traditionally sympathetic to the Republican cause, reported the unnamed insiders’ vented feelings.
Here’s the report:
That’s scary.
It’s not inconceivable that she could run for office in 2012, but Palin’s biggest problem is what her supporters see as her biggest asset: her strong views. Palin is a polarising force, and I suspect that in the next four years, out of office and with plenty of time to plan its next campaign, the Republican Party will come to the realisation that it needs a moderate candidate to unify both sides of the party.
Palin, strong though she may be, probably isn’t that person.
Every day brings more unfavourable press for the Republicans, which can only be a good thing for the Democrat campaign. Much of it seems to focus on VP candidate Sarah Palin. Why? Perhaps because the chances of her assuming the Oval Office swivel chair before the end of a Republican administration’s first term aren’t altogether unlikely.
Today, having moved on from Troopergate, the networks are majoring on her spending habits, pointing out that the electoral campaign has splurged more than $150,000 on clothes for her, her husband and their kids since it added her name to the ballot. In the words of Politico:
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The excellent Huffington Post, which has become a most-read sources for this campaign, puts this expenditure into context:
During a week in which the Republican ticket is trying to highlight its connection to the working class — and, by extension, promoting its newest campaign tool, Joe the Plumber — it was revealed that Palin’s fashion budget for several weeks was more than four times the median salary of an American plumber ($37,514). To put it another way: Palin received more valuable clothes in one month than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. A Democrat put it in even blunter terms: her clothes were the cost of health care for 15 or so people.
The revelation comes on the same day that CNN is reporting how much the Palin family claimed back to fly not just the Alaskan governor but also her husband and children around the country:
Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.
The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
A campaign spokesperson assured reporters that the clothes will be donated to charity once the race is over, whoever wins.
If it goes the Republicans’ way, the new administration will have 77 days in which to ready itself for office. Think Progress reports an exchange between Palin and some third-grade students. What does a Vice President do? They asked. Her answer: ‘[T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.’
Except they’re not. The Senate website explains that:
During the twentieth century, the role of the vice president has evolved into more of an executive branch position. Now, the vice president is usually seen as an integral part of a president’s administration and presides over the Senate only on ceremonial occasions or when a tie-breaking vote may be needed.
Is this why The News Quiz was so delighted when McCain named Sarah Palin his running mate?
But perhaps the most worrying story for the campaign, and perhaps the US as a whole, is an apparent endorsement of the McCain campaign from al-Qaeda sympathisers. Says the Telegraph.
In an endorsement that will not be welcomed by Mr McCain’s flagging campaign, the group said that if al-Qaeda wants to exhaust the US militarily and economically, the “impetuous” Republican presidential candidate is the better choice.
Probably not what he wanted to hear.
Technorati Tags:
mccain, john+mccain, palin, sarah+palin, us+election, election
McCain is running on public funds in his campaign for the White House, yet Reuters reports his team soliciting contributions from Russia’s ambassador to the UN.
In the letter, McCain urged Russia’s U.N. Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, to contribute anywhere from $35 (20 pounds) to $5,000 (2,912 pounds) to help ensure McCain’s victory over Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama, currently ahead in voter preference polls.
“If I have the honour of continuing to serve you, I make you this promise: We will always put America — her strength, her ideals, her future — before every other consideration,” McCain assured Churkin.
Oops! McCain asks Russian envoy for money | Oddly Enough | Reuters
From this morning’s Telegraph:
At the end of last month, Palin was interviewed by Katie Couric, the main news anchor for the CBS television network.
Couric asked Palin whether the $700 billion for the Wall Street bail-out, which had at that point not been approved by Congress, might be better spent helping out middle-class families.
Palin replied: “That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out.
“But ultimately what the bail-out does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the – it’s got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track.
She went on: “So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade – we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today – we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity.”
Sarah Palin dives in poll ratings as Tina Fey impersonates her on Saturday Night Live – Telegraph
Does anyone else understand what this is all about? I’ve heard Bush speak some gibberish during his time in office, but this is so confused it’s beyond me.
