(With respect to Richard I am not commenting on the Democrat race today)

Looking at key counties that voted big for Bush in 2000, Fred Thompson was taking a lot of votes that potentially could have gone to Huckabee. For example:

Greenville

Huckabee – 16,775
McCain – 15,297
Thompson – 12,438

Spartanburg

Huckabee – 10,297
McCain – 8,232
Thompson – 5,893

The open nature of the Republican race helped McCain in Iowa, as Huckabee’s victory over Romney stopped the latter getting momentum. As a result McCain took New Hampshire. Now Thompson may have helped McCain (not necessarily handing him the victory) again in South Carolina.

And South Carolina does matter. It has selected the Republican nominee for a long time, and it’s where McCain foundered in 2000. It will be a great confidence boost to him and his crew to win this time. With Florida coming up in a bit over a week McCain will get a boost and Giuliani, ahead for months, will be kicking himself about that. McCain has always been his biggest rival.

I think Huckabee and Thompson have lost their chance. The former should have won tonight and the former needed to come second/near to the front-runner (16% is not enough). Even if they get support elsewhere it will probably be too little too late. That leaves Giuliani and Romney to compete against McCain – at this time I’m not sure they can.

Those who wrote him off as early as late last year must feel really embarrassed now.

Raj

How mad are the Republicans?

I sense that the syndrome says something about what has gone so badly wrong with the conservative movement in the past ten years. It has become so intolerant and exclusive that once orthodox views are now regarded as heresy; while views once merely narrow and eccentric are now prerequisites for membership.

One of Mr McCain’s biggest sins is to have opposed tax cuts in the early years of the Bush presidency because there was no effort to cut spending to match them. This runs counter to the new orthodoxy on the Right that believes tax cutting is a kind of alchemy – cut taxes anywhere at any time and you will always and everywhere produce increases in government revenues. There is not the slightest evidence for this, but no matter. You must believe.

Mr McCain is unacceptable also because he has insufficiently orthodox views on human rights. Last week a writer in the National Review said that Mr McCain was not a conservative because he opposes torture of terrorist suspects. Quite how the party of Lincoln and Eisenhower came to erect a “Torturers Only” sign at its gate will be a matter for historians.

An interesting read and generally spot on in my view. Even if McCain doesn’t pick up South Carolina it won’t mean he can’t win sufficient support on Super Tuesday to make him the clear front-runner. But, as I have said all along, he is the only serious challenge to the leading Democrats. Sadly some Republicans clearly are delluded in believing Huckabee or Romney could do better. Or maybe they know McCain is their only real chance, but the last thing they’d want to admit is that he could win.

We shall see in a couple of weeks whether Republicans would prefer to try to win or sulk because the country doesn’t share their “values”.

Achmed the Dead Terrorist

From Youtube

It’s “one of those weeks” where I’ll be essentially hiding out. But this story is too significant to pass up. It’s an old story, maybe as old as China itself – the government seizes land used by farmers for many years and tries to profit from it. The interesting issue here is the chain reaction of protests this is setting off in multiple locations.

About 1,000 farmers gathered in the village meeting hall here at 8 a.m. on Dec. 19 and proclaimed what amounted to a revolt against China’s communist land-ownership system.

The broad, flat fields surrounding Changchunling belong to the farmers who work them, they declared, and not to the local government. The farmers then began dividing up the village’s collective holdings, with the goal of making each family the owner of a private plot.

“There is no justification for taking the land away from the farmers,” said one of the participating peasants.

The redistribution exercise at Changchunling was not an isolated incident. Rather, it marked what appears to be the start of a backlash against China’s system of collective land ownership in rural areas….

But here in the Fujin area, farmers have not just exploded in anger, but have taken on the system that gives officials their power over the land. Moreover, they have coordinated with other farmers via the Internet and sought tactical advice from democracy advocates in Beijing who see an opportunity to advance their political agenda.

“It is a frontal challenge,” one activist said.

Is this more of the same, or a “revolution”? Whether it’s a revolution or just another of those countless demonstrations that erupt every year in the countryside here, it all goes back to the same issue – corrupt local officials trying to fuck their people over, and a central government too weak and insecure to do anything about it. That corruption, after all, is the grease that keeps the CCP power machine humming. One more embarrassment the Party will have to deal with as its day in the sun approaches.

The Economist – The case for John McCain (Lexington, 6th December 2007)

There are signs that Republicans are swallowing their doubts about Mr McCain. He is gaining some momentum in New Hampshire (he is barely campaigning in Iowa because he has long ridiculed the absurd ethanol subsidies with which many farmers there line their pockets). The New Hampshire Union Leader gave him a ringing endorsement this week. He is creeping back up the polls nationally, and is now coming second to Mr Giuliani. Republicans need to keep swallowing. Mr McCain is surely worth another look.

Even as recently as last month McCain was still written off by many pundits, yet the Economist’s picture of the battle between McCain and Giuliani as being like the story of the tortoise and hare seems to be coming true. The former mayor of New York’s polling is being punished by his poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, even in states where he thought he had it wrapped up, whereas the McCain election campaign has got it right so far.

Rudy Giuliani eyeballs poll disaster

As recently as early last month, Giuliani was almost 15 points clear of the field in national polls; he was 33 points ahead in his native New York and 15 points up in Florida, which holds its primary on January 29. But a series of embarrassing political setbacks has knocked his legs from under him.

In one national poll last week, he plunged to third place among Republican candidates, with only 16% of the vote. In New York on Friday a Survey USA poll showed that his lead over John McCain, the surging Ari-zona senator who won the New Hampshire primary, had sunk to just three points. Even Florida, long targeted by Giuliani as his ideal state to launch a winning campaign, is turning into a minefield. In a poll last Friday, he slipped into second place, eight points behind McCain.

The race isn’t over by a long-shot, but the idea that McCain is only three points behind in his opponent’s backyard boggles the mind.

Giuliani’s mistake was to rely too much on his post 9/11 reputation. It should have served as a base to gain notoriety and nothing more. But he keeps talking about it far too much, as if it’s the only thing he has. That won’t help him in a race against Clinton or Obama.

Indeed, once again, it’s the senator from Arizona who is pushing the leading Democrats according to this poll. As the Economist suggested, if Republicans want a chance at keeping the White House they need to keep swallowing down on whatever concerns they have about him – he’s the only credible chance they have now.

As for Rudy:

“Either Rudy is a genius, and is about to defy half a century of conventional political wisdom,” noted one leading New York Democrat last week. “Or he has run the most stupid presidential campaign in history.”

We shall see, but from this point on I think his campaign is in the hands of the Fates, not his own. That’s not a good position for a politician to be in.

Raj

Thanks to Battlepanda’s blog for reporting this.

BBC reports

The average UK person will this year have a greater income than their US counterpart for the first time since the 19th Century, figures suggest. Analyst Oxford Economics said the UK’s GDP per head of population will reach £23,500 – £250 higher than in the US.

However, because goods and services are cheaper in the US, Americans will have stronger purchasing power, it added. UK GDP per capita will also be higher than in Germany (£21,665) and France (£21,700), Oxford Economics calculated.

We have not been the “sick man of Europe” for some time, but it’s always nice to be reminded of the change that has swept across the country. We are still one of the premier European economies, and will remain that way even though growth will slow next year.

Cheers!

Raj

Taiwan has voted for a new legislative, and the KMT has secured a big majority. Congratulations to the new legislators.

The incumbant DPP administration has been hammered and in many ways rightly so. It is still obsessed with droning on about what the KMT did many years ago, Taiwanese identity, etc. Whilst they all have their places in campaigning, they can’t put food on the table or give someone a job. In contrast the KMT generally focused on domestic issues like the economy. Sure it isn’t that bad, but Opposition parties never admint that in an election – in every country they exaggerate the problems and failures, whilst ignoring the successes. Why help your opponents?

I believe that the KMT are now in a very strong position to win the Presidential election in March. The legislative election reminds me of John Major’s (Conservative Party) defeat in the 1997 UK general election. Things were not really that bad in the UK, but Labour came in with a “time for a change” campaign. This often happens in democracies – people get tired of the incumbants and look for another party to mix things up a bit. That the legislative has been controlled by the KMT and its allies hurt the DPP’s legislative programme, but voters normally blame the executive for lack of initiatives – that’s the price of living in a democracy (people can be unreasonable).

Yes, the KMT ruled Taiwan for decades in a repressive manner, but the Labour Party used to campaign for CND, making the unions powerful and high taxes – that didn’t stop them in 1997 presenting a new image. Similarly the KMT has reinvented itself in Taiwan. The DPP’s problem was that it refused to accept the KMT could change and wouldn’t adapt to fight them in the present day. They seem to act as if we were still in the 1980s. “Fear the past” campaigns rarely help keep incumbants in. It failed in 1997 for John Major and will probably fail for Gordon Brown (Labour Party) when he fights David Cameron (Conservative Party) at the next general election.

It would probably be a disaster if the DPP won the presidency, not because of the candidate (I think Frank Hsieh would be a good leader), but because the legislative would fight with the executive again. If the KMT had only won a small majority, it might have had its expectations quashed. But now it will want the presidency back – failure to win it will result in another four years of bitter confrontation. The idea that the KMT would split after another presidential defeat is probably wishful thinking, especially now that it has such a large majority – it could easily survive a modest split. Furthermore the KMT will have the ability to initiate the recall of the president as it has more than a 2/3 majority. I’m sure they would play that card at some point, further causing trouble.

A unified legislative and presidency would allow Taiwan to actually do what it has to do. The legislative would stop playing around with the budget and spending to spite the DPP – the military would be able to get new weapons more quickly (the KMT does want to order new equipment but blocked orders for years out of spite towards the DPP). I’m not suggesting a legislative and presidency should always be controlled by one party, but in Taiwan’s special position (i.e. threatened by China and diplomatically isolated) unified political leadership can be helpful.

Yes, the KMT will push for better ties with China – that’s good. There will be no “surrender” because the KMT does not trust the CCP and never will. On the other hand, China will have no excuses. There will be no alternative administration it could hope to negotiate with. It will be the KMT or no one. Further troublemaking on its part will finally demonstrate that China, not Taiwan, is the problem. If on the other hand Beijing and Taipei reconcile it would be good for both sides.

So what about the DPP? Well it has taken a small but necessary first step – Chen’s resignation as party chairman. He was a disaster in leading them through the election, not fighting on issues people really care about. After he finishes his term in office, he needs to disappear from politics and let those with new ideas rebuild. Because the DPP does need to change. It needs to fight on issues that affect people on a day-to-day basis. China and the KMT’s past aren’t relevant until you’ve got the core issues wrapped up with a good manifesto. After March the DPP will need to focus on the first rounds of local elections to rebuild support at that level.

Taiwan isn’t heading back to a one party autocracy because the democratic system is too firm – the public wouldn’t allow the KMT to go back to their old ways. Furthermore, if the KMT take the presidency they will have no excuses – they will have the ability to do whatever they want, so failure will be down to them. Eventually the electorate will want to give the DPP another go provided it shapes up. If the KMT turn into the Taiwanese equivalent of the LDP in Japan, it will be because of the DPP’s inability to make itself electable.

On a side-note, if anyone complains the system isn’t fair – well it isn’t. But that’s because the DPP didn’t want a fair system where seats were allocated pretty much in line with the votes obtained nationally, they wanted a system where they could get a majority of seats without a majority of votes (like we have in the UK). That’s why they and the KMT voted for it, whilst the smaller parties objected. The DPP paid the price for being greedy.

Raj

TPM Muckraker offers an excellent look at how the Bush administration is using language to obfuscate the fact that the surge failed to meet nearly all of its stated objectives. As I’ve thought for years, we’re just going to quietly pull out and say, well, it’s up to the Iraqis now – and then the real chaos will begin.

The one thing that saves Bush from total revolution is the shockingly short attention span and memory of the American public, as the aforementioned post indicates in its first sentence. To repeat a simple but often forgotten point, the surge was about achieving a series of measurable benchmarks. Its end goal was not a reduction in violence but political reconciliation. It has thus far been yet another failure.

That’s how much gold is up since I urged readers to buy it almost one year ago. Maybe I can retire earlier than I’d expected. (Well, not really; I am still recovering from my losses from the dot-com crash. But this has definitely been my year for bouncing back.)

This is an example of blogging at its very best. Anonymoused for your convenience. Thanks to Danwei for the tip.