New Years resolution a blog post a week so starting early and building on the political analysis in my Alfred Deakin Research Institute Working Paper American liberalism and capitalism from William Jennings Bryan to Barack Obama: Is there a new fascism on the march? Observers point to the far-right terrorism in Europe, how Islamophobia repeats […]
Obama and Gillard’s prospects compared
2010 was a difficult year for the Australian Labor Party and the American Democrats. Media coverage goes in waves; it was slow to catch up with Labor’s woes and perhaps has overstated Obama’s difficulties. Much was made of the Democrats’ poor performance in the Congressional elections. Little attention was given to the fact that they […]
The Democrats’ defeat
How to evaluate the Democrats’ midterm defeat? It is a bad result at the upper range of expectations. It marks the almost complete collapse of the southern Congressional Democrats outside of African-American and some Hispanic districts.
Populism from Bryan to Obama
Barack Obama’s current political woes are slightly overstated, the current Democrat slump has been worsened by a panic reaction to bad economic news, even although the economic evidence viewed overall points to a continuation of the slow recovery.
Would bank nationalization have made a difference?
In November Americans will vote in Congressional elections that will probably deliver a major rebuff to the Democrats. Is there any way the Democrats could have prevented this outcome? From an Australian viewpoint the American discussion of Congressional elections is curious as relatively little attention is given to overall voting intention, it is true that […]
50 foot Pelosi tramples Republicans
Republicans couldn’t win today the only district to vote for John Kerry in 2004 and John McCain in 2008. Maybe the Democrats do have a chance of holding the House in November after all. Their chances would improve with more Republican ads like this…the inspiration is the 1958 film Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
Conservatism and economic crisis
Many on the left hope that economic crises will radicalize voters to the left. Doug Henwood and Paul Krugman disagree. There is evidence from American history in their support, the first American presidential election at which the Democrats were clearly to the left of the Republicans on economic issues was 1896, but at this election […]
Signs of hope for Congressional Democrats?
There are some signs of improving prospects for the Democrats in November. At least one poll now has then ahead in the generic ballot and the Real Clear Politics poll average has almost a dead heat. In this context Pennsylvania-12 takes on added significance.
Obama goes to Allentown
Not my musical tastes but relevant to the Democrats’ current electoral woes… Have the Democrat’s prospects in the upcoming mid-term elections improved? They remain dire. The upcoming special elections in Pennsylvania and Hawaii are likely to be lost by the Democrats. The Pennsylvania special election is in the 12th district in the former steel-making and […]
Obama’s lost opportunity?
Has Obama’s presidency been a wasted opportunity for American liberalism? Was there ever a prospect of establishing a permanent Democratic majority? Via Mathew Yglesias an interesting analysis from an American dating site using membership data to track the relation between ideological identification and partisan allegiance.