Stopping digging is a good thing, but when you're in such a deep hole, I agree it's not quite enough. I guess we'll all have t osee what comes next (actually, I'm curious as to what will come before the election, on the energy and economic fronts: we're in a lull this week, but I don't expect things to last like this for very long). In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
I have never found you to be less than polite.
I think that Obama is go to lose. This was a golden opportunity for change, and the chattering classes got fixated on Iraq. It's as though for many of them (and I'm sure that you met this contingent at the big orange place) that there was no Left before the Iraq War.
At the very least, Obama's electoral collapse will be unique in that he will demonstrate an entirely new way to lose, by picking up states like Virginia and Colorado, in which economic issues like trade and healthcare matter less politically than social issues. And losing a gigantic swath of the Midwest (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania) where factory jobs have gone poof.
The first block of states is worth about a third of the electoral votes of the latter group.
Again, on the positive side, it will be an opportunity for European broadcasters to try to explain what the Electoral College is.
C'est la vie. And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg
