ELEIÇÕES PRESIDENCIAIS NOS ESTADOS UNIDOS
Por enquanto ainda ninguém sabe quem vão ser os dois candidatos a disputara a vitória final.
No entanto, estas eleições poderão mudar muito o curso da política do Ocidente, pois a União Europeia é uma entidade politicamente parada. As Direitas europeias fizeram um Tratado Neoliberal, aprovado em Lisboa em 2007, e consideram que o Neoliberalismo é o Paraíso na Terra para os homens e mulheres da alta burguesia, ‘imortais’ até ao dia em que morrem.
Os seus capatazes e capatazas lá se vão governando.
A maioria da população, que nem pertence à alta burguesia nem ao grupo dos seus capatazes e capatazas, se puder votar em referendos ‘irá estragar tudo’. Esta maioria não parece convencida do interesse que tem viver cada vez pior, com mais insegurança económica. Pelo menos nos países mais desenvolvidos a ideia do regresso às normas do capitalismo do século XIX, não anima a maioria do eleitorado.
A Civilização Ocidental só mudará se os neoconservadores perderem as eleições presidenciais nos Estados Unidos em 2008.
Apesar de haver grandes incertezas quanto aos resultados das primárias este tema das eleições presidenciais nos Estados Unidos desperta muito mais interesse que o Tratado Neoliberal da União Europeia de Lisboa 2007. Este Tratado de Lisboa 2007 não representa nenhum progresso Ético, mas as presidenciais nos Estados Unidos podem representar um grande progresso na Ética do Ocidente.
«Obama's challenge: to salt his rhetoric with kitchen-table economics
Barack Obama's key challenge in the coming weeks is countering Hillary Clinton's portrayal of him as all talk and no action, especially on the economy
Michael Tomasky in Washington
Friday January 11, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
As the voting moves west and south, can Barack Obama regain the momentum from Hillary Clinton in the wake of the latter's stunning 11th-hour victory in New Hampshire?
He got off to a surprisingly decent start. The day after his loss, he received some key union endorsements in Nevada, which will hold caucuses a week from tomorrow. The most important is from the 70,000-member Culinary Workers' Union, which represents part of the vast army of service employees who make the beds and clear the plates and cash the chips of the even vaster army of tourists who flock to Las Vegas every day. It has a reputation as the most disciplined and political of all the unions in that heavily unionized city.
The following day, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and fellow senator John Kerry gave Obama his support. This may not mean much in Nevada (by the way, they pronounce the second syllable to rhyme with "lad" rather than "laud," and they're particular about it). But I suspect that it could mean something in Washington. Establishment Democrats like Kerry - senators, members of Congress, top-level Washington players - are loathe to buck the Clinton operation publicly. At the same time, many don't exactly adore the Clintons, for reasons that aren't all the fault of the Clintons, who do not have a monopoly on pettiness. Many of these folks surely would like to endorse Obama. While they may keep their powder dry until after the mega-primary date of February 5, they will see from Kerry's example that it is possible to oppose Clinton without being struck by lightning.
What Obama must do with this new support, of course, is to give it a strong, affirmative reason to be for him. And here is his central challenge for the next three weeks. The Clinton team has had some success with its line that Obama represents "talk" while Clinton stands for "action". This is somewhat ironic given that Clinton's generally acknowledged finest moment as first lady was strictly about talk - her famous speech on women's and human rights in Beijing in 1995 - whereas her largest action, her healthcare plan, was one of recent political history's most legendary failures. But people have short memories.
So Obama needs to counter the perception that he's too up-in-the-clouds. The New Hampshire results, whatever else they might have meant about the efficacy of candidates getting lachrymose in front of the cameras, confirmed a central fact from months of opinion polling. Clinton's presentation is more about the bread-and-butter specifics of life, while Obama's is more about creating a new civic culture and new approach to problem-solving. As such, Clinton draws her highest levels of support from working-class and poor voters who depend more directly on government programs, whereas Obama's appeal is greater among better-off people who are less likely to need direct government help but who believe fervently in his rhetoric.
Obama's challenge, then, is to salt his rhetoric with a little more kitchen-table economics. There are growing fears in America of a recession. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke declared the r-word inoperative at a speech Thursday, but the mere fact that he had to address the possibility of a recession and talk of lowering interest rates again is enough to make people, and markets, jittery. Obama could do far worse, for example, than to give a major speech about the economy and outline some specifics steps he would take to stave off the anticipated slump.
But Clinton already stole his march here. Today, in the crucial state of California, she outlined just such a package, with $70 billion in emergency stimulus spending. Obama could still trump her by offering a bolder plan. Let the record note, though, that Clinton thought of it first.
None of this is to say that Obama's central message is failing him terribly. The yearning for the kind of leadership he offers, into a post-Clinton and post-Bush and hopefully less toxic era, is still very strong. It would be reaching to interpret his New Hampshire loss - after all, by just 7,000 votes out of 250,000 cast - as a rejection of his message.
But he did take a punch. Presidential elections are above all else endurance tests, and voters will be watching to see how this untested candidate recovers. It's now very clearly a two-person race (John Edwards will hang around, but he will not win the nomination and his percentages will diminish). In a two-person race, you have the freedom to move more directly to blunt the opponent's advantages. And we're moving out of lily-white America now into states that should be demographically kinder to Obama.
So the Illinoisan still has some distinct advantages. He has, in fact, only one clear disadvantage - that in voters' minds he's not measuring up to Clinton on what they call in management school "deliverables". But many an election has turned on this question.»
(In «The Guardian»)
No entanto, estas eleições poderão mudar muito o curso da política do Ocidente, pois a União Europeia é uma entidade politicamente parada. As Direitas europeias fizeram um Tratado Neoliberal, aprovado em Lisboa em 2007, e consideram que o Neoliberalismo é o Paraíso na Terra para os homens e mulheres da alta burguesia, ‘imortais’ até ao dia em que morrem.
Os seus capatazes e capatazas lá se vão governando.
A maioria da população, que nem pertence à alta burguesia nem ao grupo dos seus capatazes e capatazas, se puder votar em referendos ‘irá estragar tudo’. Esta maioria não parece convencida do interesse que tem viver cada vez pior, com mais insegurança económica. Pelo menos nos países mais desenvolvidos a ideia do regresso às normas do capitalismo do século XIX, não anima a maioria do eleitorado.
A Civilização Ocidental só mudará se os neoconservadores perderem as eleições presidenciais nos Estados Unidos em 2008.
Apesar de haver grandes incertezas quanto aos resultados das primárias este tema das eleições presidenciais nos Estados Unidos desperta muito mais interesse que o Tratado Neoliberal da União Europeia de Lisboa 2007. Este Tratado de Lisboa 2007 não representa nenhum progresso Ético, mas as presidenciais nos Estados Unidos podem representar um grande progresso na Ética do Ocidente.
«Obama's challenge: to salt his rhetoric with kitchen-table economics
Barack Obama's key challenge in the coming weeks is countering Hillary Clinton's portrayal of him as all talk and no action, especially on the economy
Michael Tomasky in Washington
Friday January 11, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
As the voting moves west and south, can Barack Obama regain the momentum from Hillary Clinton in the wake of the latter's stunning 11th-hour victory in New Hampshire?
He got off to a surprisingly decent start. The day after his loss, he received some key union endorsements in Nevada, which will hold caucuses a week from tomorrow. The most important is from the 70,000-member Culinary Workers' Union, which represents part of the vast army of service employees who make the beds and clear the plates and cash the chips of the even vaster army of tourists who flock to Las Vegas every day. It has a reputation as the most disciplined and political of all the unions in that heavily unionized city.
The following day, 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and fellow senator John Kerry gave Obama his support. This may not mean much in Nevada (by the way, they pronounce the second syllable to rhyme with "lad" rather than "laud," and they're particular about it). But I suspect that it could mean something in Washington. Establishment Democrats like Kerry - senators, members of Congress, top-level Washington players - are loathe to buck the Clinton operation publicly. At the same time, many don't exactly adore the Clintons, for reasons that aren't all the fault of the Clintons, who do not have a monopoly on pettiness. Many of these folks surely would like to endorse Obama. While they may keep their powder dry until after the mega-primary date of February 5, they will see from Kerry's example that it is possible to oppose Clinton without being struck by lightning.
What Obama must do with this new support, of course, is to give it a strong, affirmative reason to be for him. And here is his central challenge for the next three weeks. The Clinton team has had some success with its line that Obama represents "talk" while Clinton stands for "action". This is somewhat ironic given that Clinton's generally acknowledged finest moment as first lady was strictly about talk - her famous speech on women's and human rights in Beijing in 1995 - whereas her largest action, her healthcare plan, was one of recent political history's most legendary failures. But people have short memories.
So Obama needs to counter the perception that he's too up-in-the-clouds. The New Hampshire results, whatever else they might have meant about the efficacy of candidates getting lachrymose in front of the cameras, confirmed a central fact from months of opinion polling. Clinton's presentation is more about the bread-and-butter specifics of life, while Obama's is more about creating a new civic culture and new approach to problem-solving. As such, Clinton draws her highest levels of support from working-class and poor voters who depend more directly on government programs, whereas Obama's appeal is greater among better-off people who are less likely to need direct government help but who believe fervently in his rhetoric.
Obama's challenge, then, is to salt his rhetoric with a little more kitchen-table economics. There are growing fears in America of a recession. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke declared the r-word inoperative at a speech Thursday, but the mere fact that he had to address the possibility of a recession and talk of lowering interest rates again is enough to make people, and markets, jittery. Obama could do far worse, for example, than to give a major speech about the economy and outline some specifics steps he would take to stave off the anticipated slump.
But Clinton already stole his march here. Today, in the crucial state of California, she outlined just such a package, with $70 billion in emergency stimulus spending. Obama could still trump her by offering a bolder plan. Let the record note, though, that Clinton thought of it first.
None of this is to say that Obama's central message is failing him terribly. The yearning for the kind of leadership he offers, into a post-Clinton and post-Bush and hopefully less toxic era, is still very strong. It would be reaching to interpret his New Hampshire loss - after all, by just 7,000 votes out of 250,000 cast - as a rejection of his message.
But he did take a punch. Presidential elections are above all else endurance tests, and voters will be watching to see how this untested candidate recovers. It's now very clearly a two-person race (John Edwards will hang around, but he will not win the nomination and his percentages will diminish). In a two-person race, you have the freedom to move more directly to blunt the opponent's advantages. And we're moving out of lily-white America now into states that should be demographically kinder to Obama.
So the Illinoisan still has some distinct advantages. He has, in fact, only one clear disadvantage - that in voters' minds he's not measuring up to Clinton on what they call in management school "deliverables". But many an election has turned on this question.»
(In «The Guardian»)
publicada por José às
11:24 da tarde
