Instead, the issue was ignored, and will come up again at this election (where Le Pen will get 20%), and Chirac decided he could ignore everything and everybody - and keep on doing the debilitating nothing he's always done while actually in power (as opposed to running for power, his only competence, because he's good at destroying others) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
After two terms of Clinton people were complacent enough to believe that democracy actually might exist for real, and a vote for an alternative candidate might have an effect on policy.
I suppose it was an understandable mistake.
But still - in real world terms - ouch.
As for France - I don't trust Royal. She reminds me of Blair and Hillary. This is likely to be prejudice based on ignorance, but there's something a little too mythical and not quite human enough about her. She comes across as more of a narrative than a candidate, and I don't trust narratives.
I know nothing at all about the other candidates beyond what people have said in their comments.
Assuming Fabius doesn't get the nod, what are the chances of a Left-ish victory in the main election?
Royal and Sarkozy poll at around 30% each in Round One. Le Pen at around 15%, though he can be expected to do better because advance polls always underestimate his real final vote.
What happened in 2002 was not that Le Pen got a surprise high score, it was that Chirac and Jospin did badly.
My first general election in Spain was in 1996. I abstained. I was not going to vote for Aznar, I wanted Felipe out (not because I thought he was corrupt but because I thought the PSOE should renovate itself) and I couldn't reward the United Left's [Communist] Anguita's years-long "pincer" with Aznar by which he hoped to damage the PSOE so much that he would take over ("il sorpasso", he called it). The outcome was not bad: Aznar won a slim plurality of seats and needed to make alliances with his hated Catalan and Basque nationalists, bite some bullets, and generally make good of his promised "journey to the centre".
In 2000 I was scared shitless of an Aznar absolute majority and so I voted for Almunia, who was an honest, hard-working former minister and not at all a lesser evil. Nevertheless, PSOE sympathisers were generally depressed after the "primary" experiment had blown up, and 3M socialist voters stayed at home, so my vote didn't make a difference and Aznar got a majority of the seats in parliament and ruled Spain like his private ranch [como un cortijo we would say in Spanish].
In 2004 I voted for Zapatero by post as I was abroad, so I was not influenced by the events of March 11-13. Again a minority government resulted, which has been great. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
The lesser evil is sometimes what you should do because it's still a step in the right direction. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
