Republican Politics, American Style
Published on March 20th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week my closing comment was to express my hope for a landslide victory by Barack Obama in the General Election, one that would also usher in a bigger Democratic majority in Congress as well as many state legislatures.
One of my Republican friends, who is also sympathetic to my reasons for supporting Barack Obama, was nonetheless surprised to hear me advocating for larger Democratic legislative majorities as well. He wondered how I could do this given my longstanding opposition to many of the policies supported by previous Democratic legislative majorities in Congress as well as state government. So I will now attempt to explain my reasons for taking such a radically different position on this subject.
History has shown that US Presidents elected in landslide elections also bring substantial changes to the United State’s domestic political landscape. After his landslide election in 1932 Franklin Roosevelt brought Americans guaranteed old age pension benefits in the form of Social Security legislation. On the heels of his 1964 landslide Lyndon Johnson pushed through the 1965 Voting Rights Act that would later guarantee the success of 1964’s Civil Rights legislation. Ronald Reagan was able to cement the tax and economic reforms he had pushed through Congress (which significantly altered US economic and taxation policy) following his landslide win over Walter Mondale in 1984.
Just as the US was grappling with seemingly intractable domestic problems in those years, we now face a host of equally daunting issues that will require landmark legislation to effectively deal with them. I hope I will be able to see Barack Obama follow in the footsteps of these other Presidents because I believe he is the only one of the three remaining candidates with a chance of winning the Presidency in a landslide.
With a voter mandate provided by an overwhelming electoral win and a strengthened Democratic majority in Congress, Obama would be able to cut through a lot of the partisan political posturing we have seen in Congress for the last 20 years. With his emphasis on finding common ground and not trying to settle old political scores, I believe he would be able to get enough support from both Democrats and moderate Republicans to pass the difficult measures that will be required to address America’s ills while the country is simultaneously experiencing tough economic times.
If one closely examines the political campaigns of the three remaining Presidential hopefuls, you can get a pretty good idea of who is more likely to perform best in the role of US President. Being President of the United States of America is more akin to being the CEO of a huge corporation and thus is a role that is quite different than the advise and consent role played by a US Senator. Being an effective US Senator with a paid staff of 20 people doesn’t require the same kind of CEO skills needed to manage a Presidential campaign with a paid staff of over 500 people.
Let’s take a minute to examine the records of all 3 Senators and how well they have managed their respective Presidential campaigns over the past year. John McCain began his campaign in November of 2006 as the Republican frontrunner with the advantage of his past experience running for President in 2000 and narrowly losing in some key primaries against the current President Bush. He had the experience and the national name recognition from the previous campaign as well as a strong fundraising operation. McCain actually had more well connected lobbyists as fundraisers than any other candidate for President and raised over $13 million in the first quarter of last year.
So what happened? By July of last year the McCain presidential campaign was almost broke and they had to let almost 100 staffers go while the other remaining staff took pay cuts or switched to being unpaid advisors. McCain had also slipped from first to fourth place in national polls behind Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and the as yet undeclared candidacy of Fred Thompson. As a result McCain also showed both his campaign manager and chief campaign strategist the door.
But John McCain’s subsequent comeback to win the Republican nomination was less about savvy political campaign management and more due to the mistakes of his competitors and fortunate turns of events that McCain had no control or influence over.
In January of 2007 Hillary Clinton began her Presidential campaign in an even stronger position than John McCain thanks to the transfer of $10 million from her NY Senate campaign. She had been discussing running for President since the fall of 2002 and so it was widely assumed that much of the money raised for her 2006 Senate re-election was actually destined for the 2008 Presidential race.
She was the immediate Democratic frontrunner in all of the national polls due to her name recognition as the wife of a popular former President at a time when the current President was very unpopular. She also led the polls in the first 6 Democratic primary/caucus states and used this data coupled with influential lobbyists to raise an additional $25 million in the first quarter of 2007 to add to the $10 million from her 2006 Senate re-election campaign she started the presidential race with. By October of 2007 Hillary Clinton had a commanding lead in all of the national and early voting state polls over her 2 main rivals, John Edwards and Barack Obama.
By the beginning of December Senator Clinton was presumed by most political observers and establishment Democrats to be unstoppable in her quest to be the Democratic Presidential nominee. As a result many of these Democratic politicians decided to jump on the fast moving Clinton Presidential campaign train and announced they would cast their un-pledged delegate vote for Clinton at the Democratic National Convention. Clinton had over 200 Super-delegates pledged to support her before the first voters ever went to the polls.
So what happened? I will discuss this in some detail next week.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
President Bush is out of touch with reality
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on March 13th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to turn my attention to the results of the March 4th primaries. My forecast was wrong in that Clinton barely held off Obama’s advance in Texas. But Clinton continues to weaken as Obama rolls into Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi on Tuesday with no real chance of strengthening before the August convention season. Thus I remain more optimistic about the long range forecast for positive impacts from political climate change in the US than for progress on ecological climate change.
In my columns a few weeks ago I said that the number one US Presidential election issue was not going to be the war in Iraq, universal healthcare or global warming, rather it would be the sad state of the US economy. This does not bode well for Senator John McCain, the likely Republican Presidential nominee, and Republicans running for Congress since he and other Republicans in Congress are closely tied to our lame-duck President and his short-sighted economic and irresponsible fiscal policies.
Our current President seems to be increasingly irrelevant and hopelessly out of touch with the economic malaise that is enveloping the United States. Americans are now getting their first good hard look at the bills which are coming due for our President’s ill fated war in Iraq and failure to reign in government spending over the last seven years. He and his Republican cohorts in Congress still try to tout their 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as having been a boon for the US economy but more and more Americans are starting to realize that the economic prosperity of the last 6 years was actually a false prosperity financed by easy bank credit and irresponsible mortgage lending practices.
President Bush recently returned from a week long tour of Africa where he attempted to draw attention to one of the few good things that his administration has done during his two terms in office, which was to increase humanitarian assistance to many of the impoverished countries in this region. Unfortunately even these positive contributions have become lost in the chatter surrounding the President Bush’s numerous failed economic and foreign policies. Worse still is the impact those policies are now having on future aid to African countries.
As I write this the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of countries and or the amount of humanitarian aid it provides them because of a 41% increase in the price of wheat, corn and other grains over the past year. This food price inflation can also bee seen in the cost of bread and cereals by consumers in the US, Ireland and the rest of the world. While rising demand for theses grains in the booming economies of China and India is a factor in food price inflation, it is by no means the only or the biggest cause.
Another factor has been the drive to produce more alternative bio-fuels which reduce CO² pollution, an admirable but short sighted attempt to address the one of the causes of global climate change. Bio-fuel production is rising quickly in part as a reaction to the soaring price of oil which at $103 last Monday surpassed its1980 peak price of $38 a barrel before inflation adjustments. Surprised? Don’t be. The wisdom of using bio-fuels as an alternative to oil and gasoline for transportation needs was a subject under serious discussion at the Berlin environmental conference I attended two weeks ago. I will devote a separate column to a more in-depth discussion of this issue at a later date however.
That is because I want to discuss the biggest factor driving food inflation, which is the declining value of the dollar that has caused the prices of all commodities to soar in recent years. Most commodities and contracts for them around the world are priced in dollars because for decades the US dollar was the most stable and reliable currency in the world. But the huge US budget deficits (caused by the Iraq war and other irresponsible fiscal policies) coupled with trade imbalances due to US consumer demand for imported goods (which was fuelled by easy credit and inflated housing prices) has led to a drastic reduction in the value of the dollar compared to all other major currencies in the world.
Oil producers have raised the price of oil because the dollars oil prices are quoted in have lost value while demand for their oil production has held steady or increased. Thus much of the price increase for oil has not been driven by increased demand or a shortage of supply, but rather by a need to reflect the weakening value of the US dollar.
Producers of food grains use oil to transport their production to market and as their transportation costs have increased with the price of oil, so has their need to raise the price of their food stuffs. It usually takes a couple of years for a weaker dollar to translate this weakness into higher prices for oil and other goods that consumers buy and that is what US consumers are now beginning to grapple with. Only now are the true costs for President Bush’s use of the federal government’s credit card becoming apparent.
The good news in all of this is that by the time Election Day rolls around eight months from now, the US economy should be well into an Iraq war and budget deficit induced recession, one that Bush and his Republican cohorts will not be able to evade responsibility for. This may lead American voters to not only elect a Democrat named Barack Obama as their next President, but to do so in a landslide election that also ushers in a bigger Democratic majority in Congress as well as many state legislatures.
Published on March 13th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to turn my attention to the results of the March 4th primaries. My forecast was wrong in that Clinton barely held off Obama’s advance in Texas. But Clinton continues to weaken as Obama rolls into Wyoming on Saturday and Mississippi on Tuesday with no real chance of strengthening before the August convention season. Thus I remain more optimistic about the long range forecast for positive impacts from political climate change in the US than for progress on ecological climate change.
In my columns a few weeks ago I said that the number one US Presidential election issue was not going to be the war in Iraq, universal healthcare or global warming, rather it would be the sad state of the US economy. This does not bode well for Senator John McCain, the likely Republican Presidential nominee, and Republicans running for Congress since he and other Republicans in Congress are closely tied to our lame-duck President and his short-sighted economic and irresponsible fiscal policies.
Our current President seems to be increasingly irrelevant and hopelessly out of touch with the economic malaise that is enveloping the United States. Americans are now getting their first good hard look at the bills which are coming due for our President’s ill fated war in Iraq and failure to reign in government spending over the last seven years. He and his Republican cohorts in Congress still try to tout their 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as having been a boon for the US economy but more and more Americans are starting to realize that the economic prosperity of the last 6 years was actually a false prosperity financed by easy bank credit and irresponsible mortgage lending practices.
President Bush recently returned from a week long tour of Africa where he attempted to draw attention to one of the few good things that his administration has done during his two terms in office, which was to increase humanitarian assistance to many of the impoverished countries in this region. Unfortunately even these positive contributions have become lost in the chatter surrounding the President Bush’s numerous failed economic and foreign policies. Worse still is the impact those policies are now having on future aid to African countries.
As I write this the U.S. Agency for International Development is drafting plans to reduce the number of countries and or the amount of humanitarian aid it provides them because of a 41% increase in the price of wheat, corn and other grains over the past year. This food price inflation can also bee seen in the cost of bread and cereals by consumers in the US, Ireland and the rest of the world. While rising demand for theses grains in the booming economies of China and India is a factor in food price inflation, it is by no means the only or the biggest cause.
Another factor has been the drive to produce more alternative bio-fuels which reduce CO² pollution, an admirable but short sighted attempt to address the one of the causes of global climate change. Bio-fuel production is rising quickly in part as a reaction to the soaring price of oil which at $103 last Monday surpassed its1980 peak price of $38 a barrel before inflation adjustments. Surprised? Don’t be. The wisdom of using bio-fuels as an alternative to oil and gasoline for transportation needs was a subject under serious discussion at the Berlin environmental conference I attended two weeks ago. I will devote a separate column to a more in-depth discussion of this issue at a later date however.
That is because I want to discuss the biggest factor driving food inflation, which is the declining value of the dollar that has caused the prices of all commodities to soar in recent years. Most commodities and contracts for them around the world are priced in dollars because for decades the US dollar was the most stable and reliable currency in the world. But the huge US budget deficits (caused by the Iraq war and other irresponsible fiscal policies) coupled with trade imbalances due to US consumer demand for imported goods (which was fuelled by easy credit and inflated housing prices) has led to a drastic reduction in the value of the dollar compared to all other major currencies in the world.
Oil producers have raised the price of oil because the dollars oil prices are quoted in have lost value while demand for their oil production has held steady or increased. Thus much of the price increase for oil has not been driven by increased demand or a shortage of supply, but rather by a need to reflect the weakening value of the US dollar.
Producers of food grains use oil to transport their production to market and as their transportation costs have increased with the price of oil, so has their need to raise the price of their food stuffs. It usually takes a couple of years for a weaker dollar to translate this weakness into higher prices for oil and other goods that consumers buy and that is what US consumers are now beginning to grapple with. Only now are the true costs for President Bush’s use of the federal government’s credit card becoming apparent.
The good news in all of this is that by the time Election Day rolls around eight months from now, the US economy should be well into an Iraq war and budget deficit induced recession, one that Bush and his Republican cohorts will not be able to evade responsibility for. This may lead American voters to not only elect a Democrat named Barack Obama as their next President, but to do so in a landslide election that also ushers in a bigger Democratic majority in Congress as well as many state legislatures.
A negative effect of Global warming we can relate to
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on March 6th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I discussed political climate change in the US and by now Metro Eireann readers will also know how accurate I may or may not be at providing political climate change forecasts. As such this provides me with a lead-in to this week’s column which deals with the ecological version of climate change.
Last week, I had the privilege of being invited to present a paper based on my Masters dissertation at the 2008 International Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Climate Change which was being held in Berlin this year. This conference brings together many of the top environmental researchers and scientists from around the globe for a series of plenary sessions as well as specific discussion panels dealing with all facets of global climate change, not just the increasing levels of CO² emissions which are the main cause of global warming.
Some of these other global climate change issues that research scientists are also grappling with include problems like deforestation, desertification, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, rising sea levels and costal erosion as well as coral reef destruction and plant and animal species extinctions. But the many negative impacts of global climate change that those of us involved in this research can validate as facts are very difficult for the average man, woman or child in the industrialised world to grasp because they don’t really experience any negative consequences from them. At least, not yet they haven’t.
Here in Ireland we have all had some recent exposure to one of the more benign consequences of global warming and by that I mean our increasingly mild winter seasons. While China has received a great deal of media attention this winter because of the unprecedented winter snows that disrupted its annual Lunar New Year holiday celebrations, the trend worldwide over the past decade has been towards warmer, milder winters, particularly in the countries in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact 9 of the 10 warmest years on record in both the US and the UK (the countries with the oldest meteorological records) have occurred in the past decade.
Mind you as a resident of Ireland for the past year and a half, I am not complaining about the warmer winter weather. In fact I must confess that I rather enjoy it as I suspect many of you do as well. But having said that I also think you should be aware of some of the less benign consequences that attend the issue of global climate change. I will begin by pointing out a couple of the downside risks to the milder winters we have been experiencing in Europe and in North America due to the warmer temperatures.
The warming of the more temperate land areas in the Northern Hemisphere has expanded the growing range and season for some of the plant species we depend on for food like wheat, corn, barley, rice and oats to name a few. But it has also extended the range, life cycle and habitable areas for certain insect species such as the pesky mosquito. With friendlier and larger habitats for mosquitoes there also comes an increase in mosquito borne infectious diseases like the West Nile virus from Africa.
Unknown in North America before 1999, in just four years the US death toll from the West Nile virus went from 7 people in 1999 to 284 in 2002 and it can now be found in every state except for Hawaii and Alaska and in all of the southern Canadian provinces except for British Colombia. This century’s more frequent summer heat waves in North America appear to increase the number and rate of infections because they contribute to mosquito activity and breeding. So why should people in Ireland be concerned about infectious African tropical diseases given the fact that the West Nile virus appears to be confined to North America and Africa?
Because closer to home here in Europe there are African immigrants spreading a different tropical disease called chikungunya, which is normally found in the Indian Ocean region of Africa. But the immigrants spreading this disease, which is a less debilitating relative of the much more dangerous dengue fever, are not humans. These African immigrants are mosquitoes, more specifically tiger mosquitoes, which thanks to global warming have been expanding their range north across Europe. Since its arrival in Italy three years ago, the tiger mosquito has now spread out across Southern Europe into countries like France and Switzerland and it is now thriving in a warming Europe.
Last summer in a town in Northern Italy called Castiglione di Cervia, over 100 villagers suffered for weeks with high fever, excruciating bone pain and physical exhaustion. These are the symptoms of chikungunya, a disease that had previously been seen only in the tropics near the Indian Ocean, and by the end of September chikungunya had been diagnosed in nearly 300 Italians in the areas around this village of 2000 people. My concern for Ireland and those of us who live and travel in Europe is that if chikungunya and the tiger mosquito that transmits it can now survive and spread in Europe, there is no reason why much more devastating tropical diseases like malaria and dengue, cannot as well. Global warming doesn’t sound quite so benign now, does it?
In the US we also have seen the range of the fire ant expand from the south western US to the north and east so they can now be found throughout the southern US and into the lower portions of the mid west. Warmer temperatures are also aiding the spread of aggressive and dangerous Africanized bees northward across the US, which is having devastating effects on the domestic bee population which pollinates many of my homeland’s orchards and gardens. In future columns I will discuss other aspects of global climate change that I believe readers might be able to relate to because they are more likely to experience the effects of them within the next decade.
Charles Laffiteau is a lifelong US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is now completing his University of Texas MA dissertation in Dublin following his graduation from DCU( on March 29th) with a MA in Globalisation. He will begin a PhD research programme in Environmental Studies in October.
Published on March 6th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Last week I discussed political climate change in the US and by now Metro Eireann readers will also know how accurate I may or may not be at providing political climate change forecasts. As such this provides me with a lead-in to this week’s column which deals with the ecological version of climate change.
Last week, I had the privilege of being invited to present a paper based on my Masters dissertation at the 2008 International Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Climate Change which was being held in Berlin this year. This conference brings together many of the top environmental researchers and scientists from around the globe for a series of plenary sessions as well as specific discussion panels dealing with all facets of global climate change, not just the increasing levels of CO² emissions which are the main cause of global warming.
Some of these other global climate change issues that research scientists are also grappling with include problems like deforestation, desertification, melting glaciers and polar ice caps, rising sea levels and costal erosion as well as coral reef destruction and plant and animal species extinctions. But the many negative impacts of global climate change that those of us involved in this research can validate as facts are very difficult for the average man, woman or child in the industrialised world to grasp because they don’t really experience any negative consequences from them. At least, not yet they haven’t.
Here in Ireland we have all had some recent exposure to one of the more benign consequences of global warming and by that I mean our increasingly mild winter seasons. While China has received a great deal of media attention this winter because of the unprecedented winter snows that disrupted its annual Lunar New Year holiday celebrations, the trend worldwide over the past decade has been towards warmer, milder winters, particularly in the countries in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact 9 of the 10 warmest years on record in both the US and the UK (the countries with the oldest meteorological records) have occurred in the past decade.
Mind you as a resident of Ireland for the past year and a half, I am not complaining about the warmer winter weather. In fact I must confess that I rather enjoy it as I suspect many of you do as well. But having said that I also think you should be aware of some of the less benign consequences that attend the issue of global climate change. I will begin by pointing out a couple of the downside risks to the milder winters we have been experiencing in Europe and in North America due to the warmer temperatures.
The warming of the more temperate land areas in the Northern Hemisphere has expanded the growing range and season for some of the plant species we depend on for food like wheat, corn, barley, rice and oats to name a few. But it has also extended the range, life cycle and habitable areas for certain insect species such as the pesky mosquito. With friendlier and larger habitats for mosquitoes there also comes an increase in mosquito borne infectious diseases like the West Nile virus from Africa.
Unknown in North America before 1999, in just four years the US death toll from the West Nile virus went from 7 people in 1999 to 284 in 2002 and it can now be found in every state except for Hawaii and Alaska and in all of the southern Canadian provinces except for British Colombia. This century’s more frequent summer heat waves in North America appear to increase the number and rate of infections because they contribute to mosquito activity and breeding. So why should people in Ireland be concerned about infectious African tropical diseases given the fact that the West Nile virus appears to be confined to North America and Africa?
Because closer to home here in Europe there are African immigrants spreading a different tropical disease called chikungunya, which is normally found in the Indian Ocean region of Africa. But the immigrants spreading this disease, which is a less debilitating relative of the much more dangerous dengue fever, are not humans. These African immigrants are mosquitoes, more specifically tiger mosquitoes, which thanks to global warming have been expanding their range north across Europe. Since its arrival in Italy three years ago, the tiger mosquito has now spread out across Southern Europe into countries like France and Switzerland and it is now thriving in a warming Europe.
Last summer in a town in Northern Italy called Castiglione di Cervia, over 100 villagers suffered for weeks with high fever, excruciating bone pain and physical exhaustion. These are the symptoms of chikungunya, a disease that had previously been seen only in the tropics near the Indian Ocean, and by the end of September chikungunya had been diagnosed in nearly 300 Italians in the areas around this village of 2000 people. My concern for Ireland and those of us who live and travel in Europe is that if chikungunya and the tiger mosquito that transmits it can now survive and spread in Europe, there is no reason why much more devastating tropical diseases like malaria and dengue, cannot as well. Global warming doesn’t sound quite so benign now, does it?
In the US we also have seen the range of the fire ant expand from the south western US to the north and east so they can now be found throughout the southern US and into the lower portions of the mid west. Warmer temperatures are also aiding the spread of aggressive and dangerous Africanized bees northward across the US, which is having devastating effects on the domestic bee population which pollinates many of my homeland’s orchards and gardens. In future columns I will discuss other aspects of global climate change that I believe readers might be able to relate to because they are more likely to experience the effects of them within the next decade.
Charles Laffiteau is a lifelong US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is now completing his University of Texas MA dissertation in Dublin following his graduation from DCU( on March 29th) with a MA in Globalisation. He will begin a PhD research programme in Environmental Studies in October.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The March 4th primaries
Here is a sample of the spin the Irish and American ex-pats get over here in Ireland. Following is a quote from an half page political analysis piece speculating about Hillary's chances for a "Third Lazarus-like rebound" that ran in the Weekend Irish Times and was written by their Washington correspondent, Denis Staunton:
" She was counted out before New Hampshire and again ahead of Super Tuesday, when polls predicted huge losses in key states including California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Clinton won all those states slowing Barack Obama's march towards the nomination."
EXCUSE ME PLEASE! Did anyone else in the US see the polls Denis is refering to. The ones that predicted HUGE LOSSES FOR CLINTON IN CALIFORNIA, MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW JERSEY. Hillary likes to complain about media bias but believe you me, she doesn't have a clue what true media bias is really like.
Anywho I plan to mention Denis's LACK of credible polling analysis when I am on the air from 10-12noon on Ireland's national radio broadcaster RTE Radio 1's Today with Pat Kenny tommorow in a preview of Tuesday's primary for the folks here in Ireland.
Here is the link if you want to listen http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/
The show is on at 10am GMT which is 5 hours ahead of New York and 6 hours ahead of Dallas time so try the podcast if thats too early for ya. I have also done my part by voting absentee for Barack in the Texas Democratic primary. First time ever to vote in a Democratic primary so this joins the list of things I swore I would never do, but have.
BTW In my newspaper column last Thursday and on the radio tommorow, I am predicting a win for Barack in Texas and Vermont and a close finish if he doesn't win in Ohio and Rhode Island. I am also predicting that he widens his delegate lead over Clinton when all the votes are in even if Hillary does win Ohio and Rhode Island.
Now lets get out the vote and make my predictions stand up. Go Barack Obama!
charles
" She was counted out before New Hampshire and again ahead of Super Tuesday, when polls predicted huge losses in key states including California, Massachusetts and New Jersey. Clinton won all those states slowing Barack Obama's march towards the nomination."
EXCUSE ME PLEASE! Did anyone else in the US see the polls Denis is refering to. The ones that predicted HUGE LOSSES FOR CLINTON IN CALIFORNIA, MASSACHUSETTS AND NEW JERSEY. Hillary likes to complain about media bias but believe you me, she doesn't have a clue what true media bias is really like.
Anywho I plan to mention Denis's LACK of credible polling analysis when I am on the air from 10-12noon on Ireland's national radio broadcaster RTE Radio 1's Today with Pat Kenny tommorow in a preview of Tuesday's primary for the folks here in Ireland.
Here is the link if you want to listen http://www.rte.ie/radio1/todaywithpatkenny/
The show is on at 10am GMT which is 5 hours ahead of New York and 6 hours ahead of Dallas time so try the podcast if thats too early for ya. I have also done my part by voting absentee for Barack in the Texas Democratic primary. First time ever to vote in a Democratic primary so this joins the list of things I swore I would never do, but have.
BTW In my newspaper column last Thursday and on the radio tommorow, I am predicting a win for Barack in Texas and Vermont and a close finish if he doesn't win in Ohio and Rhode Island. I am also predicting that he widens his delegate lead over Clinton when all the votes are in even if Hillary does win Ohio and Rhode Island.
Now lets get out the vote and make my predictions stand up. Go Barack Obama!
charles
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Hillary's SNL appearance
Was it just me or did you notice that after having McCain's all but finished opponent "Huck" on last week, (a guy who is funny with his sense of self-depracting humor) Hillary was paired with Giuliani on last night's SNL. Both were viewed as the likely nominees and were leading all national polls just 3 months ago. SNL is only asking the "losers" to appear on the show.
The cartoon was just a semi-humorous way of pointing out the truth in that Obama excludes supporters from campaigning with him who symbolize the divisive politics of past years. I saw last night as SNL's endorsement of Barack as the winner and Hillary as the loser. The show also featured a popular band (Wilco) that is well know as bigtime Obama fans. Read between the lines.
The cartoon was just a semi-humorous way of pointing out the truth in that Obama excludes supporters from campaigning with him who symbolize the divisive politics of past years. I saw last night as SNL's endorsement of Barack as the winner and Hillary as the loser. The show also featured a popular band (Wilco) that is well know as bigtime Obama fans. Read between the lines.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Political climate change forecast for March 4th 2008
Republican Politics, American Style
Published on February 28th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to discuss the weather forecast for next Tuesday March 4th in the states of Texas and Ohio as well as Vermont and Rhode Island. The month of February started out stormy due to the collision of a strengthening Obama warm front with an entrenched but rapidly weakening Clinton cold air mass, but ended with spring like conditions across much of the US brought about by the powerful Obama warm front.
This collision of the Obama warm front with highs averaging in the 60s and the chilly Clinton air mass with highs only in the 30s to 40s, led to a lot of stormy weather from coast to coast across the United States in early February, with the weakening Clinton cold air mass withstanding the push from the warm Obama front along a line stretching from Massachusetts through New York and New Jersey, down into Tennessee and across the south-western states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona before it reached the Pacific coast in California.
But the rapidly strengthening Obama warm front pushed through the bitter Clinton high pressure system along the entire length of the Atlantic coast following a line from Maine to Connecticut, then down through the Chesapeake Bay peninsula area of Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia before moving south and west across the states of Georgia and Alabama and then finally across the state of Louisiana.
This strong Obama warm front also pushed aside the fading Clinton high pressure system’s nippy air mass across the entire mid-west from Illinois through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and back across the upper mid-west from Washington State on the Pacific coast through Idaho, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as the northernmost state of Alaska and the most southern and western state of Hawaii.
These two opposing warm and cold fronts will be colliding in Texas and in Ohio (a state that 200 years ago was part of Virginia) as well as across the northeast in Vermont and Rhode Island where the once dominant Clinton cold air mass has weakened in recent weeks. Now the question is; will spring also come early to the rest of these north-eastern states along with Ohio in the mid-west and Texas in the southwest thanks to the onslaught of the Obama warm front?
Most veteran forecasters are extremely hesitant to make anything beyond the most tepid predictions about what is likely to happen on March 4th if they are willing to make any predictions at all. Their hesitancy to make predictions about these colliding air masses in Texas and Ohio is due to several factors.
The biggest single factor has been the strength of the Clinton cold air mass which has dominated the United States political climate for the better part of the past 16 years. It appeared to be a strong as ever for almost the entire year in 2007 until it finally started to show signs of weakening at the very end of the year in Iowa, right in the middle of the country. While all of these veteran forecasters will readily acknowledge that the Clinton cold front has weakened dramatically across the entire country since the beginning of 2008, they still have a healthy respect for the long standing history of dominance over the political climate this Clinton cold air mass has shown through the years.
Another factor which gives these veteran forecasters cause for pause is the fact that almost all of them failed to predict the sudden strengthening of the Obama warm front. They had all observed this relatively weak low pressure system circulating on the national forecast map throughout 2007 but they had not detected any appreciable strengthening of the system throughout the year. This led most forecasters to predict that this Obama low pressure system would never gain enough strength to dislodge the massive Clinton high pressure ridge before summer and its August convention season.
There are several other factors that have added to the unpredictability of forecasting the weather on March 4th. The first of these has been the influence of tropical waves which originated in the African continent hundreds of years ago and which appear to be strengthening the intensity of the Obama low pressure system. Countering this development has been the movement of another high pressure ridge into the south-western part of the United States from Mexico. This ridge of high pressure appears to be combining with the Clinton high pressure system and reinforcing the strength of the Clinton cold air mass.
The other difference between these two high and low pressure systems (which also helps to explain the long standing dominance of the Clinton system) is the fact that the Clinton high pressure system’s cold air mass is actually a combination of two strong high pressure ridges. This is a marked contrast with the Obama low pressure system’s single warm front which makes its rapid strengthening over the past two months both unpredictable and also quite remarkable under the circumstances. Given all of the aforementioned factors, I think the reader can now understand why so many weather experts are hesitant to make a weather prediction for March 4th much less provide a forecast for the weeks and months that follow.
I am no expert when it comes to predicting political climate change. However, I will make a forecast for March 4th as well as for the weeks and months that follow into summer (which ends with the convention season at the end of August).
I predict that the Obama low pressure system and its attendant warm front will continue to gain strength and will dislodge the Clinton high pressure system and its cold air mass from Texas and Vermont and will show surprising strength in Rhode Island and Ohio. While the waning Clinton high pressure system may still hold its position in Ohio and or Rhode Island, I foresee it continuing to weaken over the course of the spring. We’ll see how accurate I am next week.
Published on February 28th in Metro Eireann By Charles Laffiteau
Today I want to discuss the weather forecast for next Tuesday March 4th in the states of Texas and Ohio as well as Vermont and Rhode Island. The month of February started out stormy due to the collision of a strengthening Obama warm front with an entrenched but rapidly weakening Clinton cold air mass, but ended with spring like conditions across much of the US brought about by the powerful Obama warm front.
This collision of the Obama warm front with highs averaging in the 60s and the chilly Clinton air mass with highs only in the 30s to 40s, led to a lot of stormy weather from coast to coast across the United States in early February, with the weakening Clinton cold air mass withstanding the push from the warm Obama front along a line stretching from Massachusetts through New York and New Jersey, down into Tennessee and across the south-western states of Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona before it reached the Pacific coast in California.
But the rapidly strengthening Obama warm front pushed through the bitter Clinton high pressure system along the entire length of the Atlantic coast following a line from Maine to Connecticut, then down through the Chesapeake Bay peninsula area of Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia before moving south and west across the states of Georgia and Alabama and then finally across the state of Louisiana.
This strong Obama warm front also pushed aside the fading Clinton high pressure system’s nippy air mass across the entire mid-west from Illinois through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and back across the upper mid-west from Washington State on the Pacific coast through Idaho, North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as the northernmost state of Alaska and the most southern and western state of Hawaii.
These two opposing warm and cold fronts will be colliding in Texas and in Ohio (a state that 200 years ago was part of Virginia) as well as across the northeast in Vermont and Rhode Island where the once dominant Clinton cold air mass has weakened in recent weeks. Now the question is; will spring also come early to the rest of these north-eastern states along with Ohio in the mid-west and Texas in the southwest thanks to the onslaught of the Obama warm front?
Most veteran forecasters are extremely hesitant to make anything beyond the most tepid predictions about what is likely to happen on March 4th if they are willing to make any predictions at all. Their hesitancy to make predictions about these colliding air masses in Texas and Ohio is due to several factors.
The biggest single factor has been the strength of the Clinton cold air mass which has dominated the United States political climate for the better part of the past 16 years. It appeared to be a strong as ever for almost the entire year in 2007 until it finally started to show signs of weakening at the very end of the year in Iowa, right in the middle of the country. While all of these veteran forecasters will readily acknowledge that the Clinton cold front has weakened dramatically across the entire country since the beginning of 2008, they still have a healthy respect for the long standing history of dominance over the political climate this Clinton cold air mass has shown through the years.
Another factor which gives these veteran forecasters cause for pause is the fact that almost all of them failed to predict the sudden strengthening of the Obama warm front. They had all observed this relatively weak low pressure system circulating on the national forecast map throughout 2007 but they had not detected any appreciable strengthening of the system throughout the year. This led most forecasters to predict that this Obama low pressure system would never gain enough strength to dislodge the massive Clinton high pressure ridge before summer and its August convention season.
There are several other factors that have added to the unpredictability of forecasting the weather on March 4th. The first of these has been the influence of tropical waves which originated in the African continent hundreds of years ago and which appear to be strengthening the intensity of the Obama low pressure system. Countering this development has been the movement of another high pressure ridge into the south-western part of the United States from Mexico. This ridge of high pressure appears to be combining with the Clinton high pressure system and reinforcing the strength of the Clinton cold air mass.
The other difference between these two high and low pressure systems (which also helps to explain the long standing dominance of the Clinton system) is the fact that the Clinton high pressure system’s cold air mass is actually a combination of two strong high pressure ridges. This is a marked contrast with the Obama low pressure system’s single warm front which makes its rapid strengthening over the past two months both unpredictable and also quite remarkable under the circumstances. Given all of the aforementioned factors, I think the reader can now understand why so many weather experts are hesitant to make a weather prediction for March 4th much less provide a forecast for the weeks and months that follow.
I am no expert when it comes to predicting political climate change. However, I will make a forecast for March 4th as well as for the weeks and months that follow into summer (which ends with the convention season at the end of August).
I predict that the Obama low pressure system and its attendant warm front will continue to gain strength and will dislodge the Clinton high pressure system and its cold air mass from Texas and Vermont and will show surprising strength in Rhode Island and Ohio. While the waning Clinton high pressure system may still hold its position in Ohio and or Rhode Island, I foresee it continuing to weaken over the course of the spring. We’ll see how accurate I am next week.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
My newspaper editor's idea not mine
This was the newspaper staff's idea to insert the Obama for President banner into my weekly column, not mine. Too bad I'm the only one eligible to vote in the election.
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