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| English: Governor Bobby Jindal at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
While I was watching
Barack Obama's victory speech last night I was jotting down notes for
Bobby Jindal. I am an Independent. If he can get me, he can win. And the
New Jersey Governor would be a great running mate. But the shrill rhetoric of the hard right is not what will carry the day.
Bobby Jindal is a conservative like I am a progressive. It has been fascinating for me to watch him. This guy truly believes. He is sharp, that I have no doubts about. He is gifted.
A Bobby Jindal in the
White House will be an even bigger statement on race relations in America than Barack Obama in the White House. And such an event will help the Republican Party go back to becoming the party of Abraham Lincoln. Bobby's symbolism will help turn that party into one that is not doing voter suppression, but is instead competing for the hearts, minds and votes of Blacks, Hispanics and Asians.
Abortion should be legal but rare, with the emphasis on rare. If Bobby can meet me there, he's got it. Instead of trying to overturn Roe V Wade, you work with progressives to bring forth programs and laws that minimizes the chances of abortion. That means a major expansion in health care for women, nationally and globally.
Bobby's stance on gun control to me is a metaphor. It is about rugged individualism. I too want a small government. The founders of America wanted a small government. Much of
the US constitution is about keeping the state out of the face of the individual.
Now off to some of the notes I jotted last night, or rather, early morning.
Conservatism For The 21st Century
- A bigger statement on race if an Indian gets it.
- A smaller government brought about by universal gigabit broadband.
- A universal push for democracy, a muscular activist.
- Rule of law within nations, rule of law between nations.
- Ongoing, respectful, civil, fruitful dialogue with Independents and Progressives.
- Competing for Black, Hispanic, Asian and female hearts, minds, votes and support through gestures and policy.
- The industries of tomorrow, faster.
- 5%+ economic growth rates year in, year out.
- Paying down the debt.
- Tax cuts that are paid for.
I expect Barack Obama to have brought down the unemployment rate to 5% by the time he is done. That can create conditions for a political pendulum swing. The idea of a smaller government might become palatable at that point.
The strategy that paved a winning path
The choice was made. The onetime campaign of hope and change soon began a sustained advertising assault that cast Romney as a heartless executive, a man who willingly fires people and is disconnected from how average Americans live their lives — an approach reinforced by Romney’s mistakes along the way. ...... Obama’s decision to focus on Romney helped set an angry tone for the multibillion-dollar campaign, the first presidential race since the Citizens United decision changed the financial calculus of U.S. elections. But among the most critical elements of his success was the quiet work his staff accomplished last year, not this one, in reviving and expanding a vast field organization that lay dormant for much of Obama’s presidency. The turnout Tuesday of African Americans, Latinos, women, and young voters in swing states was a testament to its success. ....... In Ohio, Obama’s early decision to bail out the auto industry, and Romney’s opposition to the plan, helped frame the contest in the incumbent’s favor before it even began. ..... In the final stretch, Obama almost squandered his hard-won lead with a bewildering performance in his first debate with Romney. But, for a candidate whose political career has been touched at times by luck, Hurricane Sandy arrived with a week left in the race and disrupted Romney’s effort. ...... campaign spoke early and often with “persuadable” voters, selected for targeted e-mails and doorstep visits through demographic data unavailable last time. ...... “We turned a national election into a school-board race” ....... In January 2011, nearly two years before Obama would face voters, top strategist David Axelrod, campaign manager Jim Messina and other advisers moved from the White House to Chicago to be insulated from what one campaign official described derisively as “Washington’s chattering classes.” ........ In 2011, something unexpected happened: nothing. The predicted onslaught was largely absent, giving the campaign in Chicago the time and resources to set up the organization a full year before the general election. Without having to respond to negative advertising, the campaign spent its time and money on preparation. ....... “One of the great mysteries was why they waited so long,” a third senior Obama campaign official said. “We were like the Brits during World War II, staring at the sky waiting for the bombs to fall. They never came.” ....... spent $126 million in 2011 — more than three times Romney’s total that year. The campaign opened field offices, began an extensive outreach effort in swing states and enriched a voter database with information unavailable in the last election. ....... the Obama campaign advertised heavily on the CBS’s sitcom “2 Broke Girls” ....... The tools allowed campaign officials to determine — on a house by house basis, rather than on a Zip-code-by-Zip-code basis – how people were likely to vote and whether they were likely to vote at all. ........ Voters were given “support” scores and “turnout” scores to tell the campaign’s field offices who to go after and how. Field workers were outfitted with mobile applications to give an instant report on every doorstep chat. ....... When Rick Santorum finally suspended his campaign in April and Romney emerged as the presumptive nominee, he was battered and broke. He had spent most of the roughly $100 million he had raised and would not be able to tap into his general election funds until after the August convention. ........ His political image was in tatters, too. He had turned to the right to secure the nomination, complicating his general election run. He suggested “self-deportation” to remove immigrants in the country illegally, and on Tuesday, Latinos turned out overwhelmingly in favor of the president. ........ Throughout 2011, Romney aides researched each of the roughly 100 deals that Bain Capital made during the candidate’s tenure as chief executive so they could prepare for criticism. When it came in the GOP primaries, Romney easily turned it away, accusing his opponents of attacking success itself. ........ Obama’s attempt to “swift-boat” Romney, the tactic of using a perceived strength against a candidate. The term recalled the 2004 presidential race, when Sen. John F. Kerry’s sterling Vietnam War service record was turned into a liability. ...... With an estimated net worth of between $190 million and $250 million, Romney is one of the richest Americans ever to win a major party’s presidential nomination, and he has never been at ease talking about it. ..... The Republican super PACs, sitting on millions of dollars, also decided not to defend Romney at a time when the campaign could not afford to defend itself. ....... As part of his role, Ryan had wanted to talk about poverty, traveling to inner cities and giving speeches that laid out the Republican vision for individual empowerment. But Romney advisers refused his request to do so ..... After a troubled summer trip to Britain, Poland and Israel, Romney placed foreign policy to the side. ....... The overseas excursion, described by a member of Romney’s national finance committee as “a mistake from beginning to end,” had been followed by an awkward convention. ..... His advisers told him that, if he took back his statement, the neoconservative wing of the party would “take his head off.” ...... Romney speaking derisively about “the 47 percent” of Americans who pay no income taxes ..... “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” he told the guests, who paid $50,000-a-plate to attend. ..... “Among some of the senior members of the campaign, you found people slip into talking about the campaign in the past tense” ...... “It can’t happen if you write off half the nation before you even took office,” he said. ..... as the president left for a resort outside Las Vegas to prepare for the first debate...... For weeks, Obama had resisted the intensive practice that his advisers wanted him to take on. He was the president now, and even those closest to him had a harder time ordering him to do something he didn’t want to do. ...... And he didn’t want to prepare for the debate, one of those political duties, like donor phone calls, that Obama disdained. Once in Nevada, Obama managed to escape “debate camp” for a visit to the Hoover Dam and another to a campaign field office. ...... Trailing in the polls, Romney knew the debate was perhaps his last opportunity to reverse the trajectory of the race. During flights between campaign stops or in his hotel room before bed, he studied. ...... Romney had pushed around Obama, who appeared alternately sleepy, distracted and peevish. And the conservative Republican from the primaries had made a swift turn to the center on a number of issues important to independent voters. ...... To Obama’s advisers, the gains from Romney’s stumbling September vanished in a night. ..... Obama was angry with himself and began studying the tape in preparation for the second debate that was more than a week away. ..... Unlike Obama, Biden had been preparing, off and on, for months. Advisers had put together 100 questions that Biden should expect to get, and during even the smallest windows of free time on Air Force Two, they would quiz the vice president: “So why is the economy better off than it was four years ago?” ...... He drew on “Obamadata,” as the campaign refers to its voter lists, to hold conference calls directly with thousands of voters and volunteers. ...... Then Hurricane Sandy arrived, stalling out the campaigns. It couldn’t have come at a worse time for Romney
China wrestles over democratic reform
When Chinese President Hu Jintao addressed his comrades at the opening of the 17th Communist party congress five years ago, he used the word minzhu – democracy – 69 times. ....... In addition to talking about grassroots democracy, socialist democracy and “intraparty” democracy, Mr Hu explained how the party was building a “rich, strong, democratic, civilised and harmonious modernised socialist country”. ..... a party that is richer, stronger and more modern and has 10m more members than it did five years ago. ...... After three decades of sweeping economic reforms and average annual growth rates near 10 per cent, the party is under more pressure to reform the opaque authoritarian system than at any time since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. ..... “Today the most important thing is political reform,” says Ren Yi, the grandson of reform-minded former Chinese leader Ren Zhongyi. “All Chinese, including those inside the system, all agree that it’s the next big thing.” ...... China’s annual economic growth rate has slipped from 12 per cent at the start of 2010 to around 7.5 per cent. Perhaps partly as a result, the belief that it must retool its authoritarian political structure has become surprisingly widespread among those who have benefited the most from that system. ....... The Organisation Department, which oversees party personnel issues, this year ordered a study into how Taiwan and South Korea transformed themselves from authoritarian military regimes to flourishing democracies during the 1980s and 1990s. ..... if the party allows a small group of senior officials to vote in a competitive, if severely limited, internal election. ....... This would be a small step toward “intraparty” democracy, a move that many in China see as a possible precursor to much broader political reforms. But it is far from certain that even this tiny, incremental move is on the cards. ...... The concept of open political contests behind closed doors is one that authoritarian neighbours like Vietnam and Myanmar have adopted, to the chagrin of China’s leaders, who have banned public discussion of the politics in those countries. ..... the party has “picked all the low-hanging fruit” over the past three decades. ..... “Now it is time for major political and systemic reform on the tree itself. But the party is not able to take the fundamental step of restraining itself and handing power over to the people.”
Britain to organise armed Syrian rebels into efficient fighting force
the UK will directly deal with the armed opposition in Syria for the first time. ...... has cost as many as 40,000 people lose their lives. .... The first National Security Council meeting after the US presidential election which is likely to be chaired by Prime Minister David Cameron, will be dedicated to the crisis in Syria. ...... he planned to establish an interim government inside the 'liberated' parts of northern Syria. ..... It would seek international recognition, request a fund of "more than a billion dollars", and military support to "defend ourselves from the regime's war planes". ..... "The opposition have been very clear that they want help from the international community."
