Le Pen is out, but he has successfully moved the Overton window to the Right, and given Sarkozy a chance to unite centrists and extremists. Sarkozy can capture some of the Pen-ites by throwing them just enough red meat on immigration not to alarm the centrists, who will be happy to delude themselves that he's a not really a thug - especially given his strong media support. So he has a chance to unite the Right behind him. (Even if it's for spurious reasons - but then isn't it always?)
Royal's position is very weak. She's still the underdog and although she's done well, it's not well enough to put her over the top. The Left is always more fractious and disunited than the Right, and there will be far-Left elements who see her as indistinguishable from Sarkozy. Meanwhile, with her talk of change, she looks like an extremist to many of the centrists. She may get some of the Pen-ites, but I can't see her getting enough of them to win.
It's a very bad position for her to be in, because she doesn't have a strong and united base to rely on, and there's very little she can do in two weeks to build one. Sarko's foundations seem more solid at this point. It's his election to lose, rather than her's to win.
It's also a depressing replay of Gore vs Bush, where Bush won by being the good 'ole boy. Sarkozy and Bush are disturbingly similar.
If it were down to me, I would be speechifying and rallying like crazy to get out the left-wing vote on an anyone-but-Sarko basis.
Sarko has to disguise his nature - also I think he has a problem for not being ethnically french considering his constitutuency.
It really bothers me that the Western press still routinely writes about Bush's "winning" the 2000 election. That's just an instance of the special treatment that the U.S. routinely gets in the Western media. The U.S. is an "advanced" country, so it is a priori impossible for a candidate to be placed in the White House through the theft of an election. A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns
That said, anyone care to post on historical finishes in first round of french presidential elections and how they relate to the eventual winner?
According to the Wikipedia article, in that election, incumbency was a disadvantage, so I don't know whether one can draw any inferences from that election to this one. A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns
So that's two cases in which the candidate who comes in second in the first round wins the second round. A bomb, H bomb, Minuteman / The names get more attractive / The decisions are made by NATO / The press call it British opinion -- The Three Johns
