The Lustig US election survival guide: final update
The US presidential election campaign enters its final two weeks today, and if you're not interested now, I guess you never will be. So this is the last of the Lustig election survival updates, designed for those of you who have neither the time nor the inclination to wade through the acres of coverage.
My next dispatch will be on the day after the election, 5 November, when I'll be in Washington to report on the outcome for both The World Tonight and the World Service. But for now, here are the five things you need to know.
1. Barack Obama is the clear favourite to win. But the opinion polls do not give him an overwhelming lead, and it could be tight.
2. The states to watch out for on election night are Florida, Ohio and Virginia. If John McCain doesn't win all of them, he's almost certainly lost. (Currently, Virginia is listed as "leaning to Obama"; the other two are "toss-ups".)
3. Obama has raised $600 million to fund his campaign - he'll soon have raised more than George Bush and John Kerry combined in 2004. A third of it has come in donations of less than $200.
4. Obama did well in the TV debates, but it's doubtful they made much difference. Ditto the endorsement of President Bush's former secretary of state Colin Powell.
5. If Obama does win, it'll be because (i) he ran a superb, focused and disciplined campaign; and (ii) the Republicans are being blamed for the economic crisis.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~27~RS~)
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Thank goodness for the Lustig guide. I don't know how I would have survived this long without it.
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Marcus,
Are you sure about that? ;=)
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Robin,
Somehow, 'I don't give a damn' (quote).
This is not democracy - the people don't seem to have much of a say. The money talks - the bankers and financiers talk and all that they are saying is we have forced you, the people, (the poor and huddled masses) to give us 700 Bn Dollars which we will spend just as we like.
Is there a term for 'government by finance' - I don't quite think that Oligarchy fits the bill. Something more dollar based perhaps 'Dollararchy'. (Unless there is already a suitable term - I don't like Argentocracy - it has the wrong feel, ditto Dollarocracy.)
McCain took state funding but Obama didn't. It is all a rather unsavoury sight, but it makes good TV and that is what you in the media like.
Will the people get what they deserve? Will they get what they want? Are the people deliberately kept in ignorance by the education system to maintain their compliance? Does it matter who wins? The fuss the media makes is just froth to convince the people that they have a choice and thus maintain the status quo. Hence my first thought above - Somehow...
Look, these Wall Street guys have messed up big time and have destroyed the structure of wealth in the hands of the US people (and much of the World). Yet both parties (and Wall Street ensures there are only two!) want to maintain the status quo, and what's more to use taxpayers money to refinance the status quo. Never, have so few 'stolen' from so many!
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An Ohio Judge ruled today that the State Election Authorities must allow homeless people to be able to give their home address as the park bench or the alley in which they reside and this must be accepted by the Election Authority so that homeless people are not denied the right to vote!
Is this a fundamental change as it now appears that the US will have to accept "Representation without Taxation?"
Is this the next logical step from the Founding Fathers call to arms of "No Taxation without Representation" all those years ago?
As a Subject of the English Monarch who does not pay any tax in the US can the Ohio Authorities please send me my ballot slip now!
Alternatively, any time the US wants to come back to the fold and have "taxation with representation" they only have to make a phone call to Buckingham Palace, London, England and ask Her Majesty Elizabeth II - I am sure she'll let the US people keep their quaint chads and shadow chads voting system and political structures but they just have to do without a President and accept an apolitical Monarchy instead!
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As a matter of interest, assuming that Barack Obama is to become the President-Elect of the United States (if the opinion polls remain a true reflection of the wishes of the United States Citizens) AND that it is likely that the Senate and Congress are almost certain to be Democrat majority - what is there in the American Constitution to stop the US Executive and Houses pushing through an extremely Left wing/Socialist agenda should the likes of Pelosi get sufficient influence over the new President when he takes office?
Clearly Obama has projected an image of being Centerist but his Senate voting history and partisan voting record apparently shows him to be the most left-wing of all the Democrat Senators?
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A general house-cleaning is long overdue in the United States.
Should the combination of gullibility-manipulated-by-greed return the Republicans,
then the rest of the World must organize for non-US leadership. Can it do so?
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