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AH - THERE YOU ARE

Please Sir (madam - don't know), some of us would like to ask why you post so late in the day now. And I also want to know if it takes a lot longer to check a post now (not blogdog - we know his teeth are dodgy) before it appears - or am I imagining it?

McCain blew it when he chose Eskimo Nell as his running mate.

Rob Slack

"how will McCain vs Obama be judged by history" - Can't remember whether it was the Beach Boys but I am guessing and hoping its "Wipeout!" for McCain and the Republicans.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I heard someone quote Martin Luther King on the news tonight that the colour of one's skin should not be an issue in becoming President. How true is that but judging by the number who appear to be voting on race lines seem to contradict that quote, both black and whites who have been interviewed.

I am sure that the 100% of black people that we saw queing up to vote were all McCain supporters?

Please Newsnight try and redress the balance and this perception as the number of black interviews appear to support that one's colour is an issue. i.e. "The first Black President". What has being Black got to do with it? Judging by Amercas previous history a Black President is a long hoped for wish which at one time appeared impossible.

They are supposed to be voting for a President whether he be black, white yellow or various shades of green. I hate racism of any hue and one's skin colour should have nothing to do with one's abilities.

Good luck to both candidates but I am for Obama purely on socialist agenda, whatever that socialist "Change" will be. He will win by a landslide.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY

"I don't see anyone as anything".

Bonnie Greer - Today Program - invited to engage with Barack Obama's 'blackness'.

Sounds like Nirvana tome.

WITCHES AND LIZARDS

mancroft (#4) Are you absolutely sure that isn't a witch? I've known many a good woman go off the rails once they've hit their thirties. Angel Readers Healers, Pet Healers, Reiki, crystals, all sorts of 'interesting' stuff like that which I reckon must be the consequences of estrogen and lower spatial and higher verbal or else surely there would be lots of males doing that too?

Common_Purpose looks a bit like that.

Witchcraft we used to call it. Some of them hide it better than others you know. Psychotherapy, Aiming High, SEAL, SureStart, No Child Left Behind, Breakfast Clubs, Cognitive Skills programmes....Brain Gym, Green Days, Red Days, pentapeptides in the shampoo.

The problems is Obama will not be able to keep many of the promises he made, if he is elected.

Its about what was discussed in Paul Mason's blog about trying to fix a problem that has already happened.

/blogs/newsnight/paulmason/2008/10/new_world_financial_order_what.html

If Obama (or anyone) had said what needed to be done then no one would have voted for them. As culturally we are so poorly informed of the challenges to come, hence don't understand the solutions.

Me, I'm going to build a time relocation machine find the challenges and the solutions from the future, then implement them now before the problems occur.

Anyone want to chip in?

Celtic Lion

I KNOW IT'S NOT EASTER, BUT LET'S NAIL PREJUDICE.

Man is not 'mostly harmless' man is mostly animal. Animal survival depends on prejudice. We are all prejudiced VISCERALLY but making a fairly naff job of pretending otherwise.

We can try to look 'all multicultural' until the system gets stressed. Then . . .
Even in the good times, being attractive works wonders. For a man, being tall is a measurable advantage. And you only have to look in the local paper at 'faces that marry' to see a disgraceful prejudice at work.

So lets have no more feigned capacity for saintliness; we are all subject to prejudice, and will be for as long as our DNA endures.

Ah I so look forward to hearing some of these posters who are really the BNP screaming later.

Obama Obama Obama!

#5 Billbradbuy

I am afraid he has always said he is not a socialist of any sort. Still thats WAY better than BNP I am sure you would agree - for tonight.

Could I just give advance warning that if at any point in tonight's election coverage we see Jeremy Vine in a cowboy suit, or any of the other asinine CGI skits that marred the local elections coverage, the rage occasioned will make the Brand/Ross affair seem as April showers. Thanks very much.

For the cognoscenti, blogdog permitting.

Excellent analysis by Jeremy tonight ( and look forward to tomorrows programmes too) particularly with Zogby & Dowd. Whoever wins, good luck to them!

Why do so many focus on race...more people have not voted for Mr. McCain because of his age than have not voted for Mr. Obama because of his race...where's the smirking outrage?

thegangofone (#10) "Ah I so look forward to hearing some of these posters who are really the BNP screaming later. Obama Obama Obama!"

Two facts:

1) you fabricate and erroneously attach the word 'truth' to what you make up, so you don't learn.

2) you've had the opportunity to learn from those who know more than you, yet to date, you've abused that opportunity.

What is one to conclude?

Right, might one now hope for some news closer to home or does one pay, if still so disposed, one's licence fee in dollars?

I seem to recall a small vote in Scotland coming up that might have some bearing on the way the country in theory served by the British Broadcasting Corporation is being 'run'.

sorry to all the racialists who curse an Obama victory, sorry to all the militarists who think progress is invading countries for oil, sorry for all the neanderthals who think the colour of a mans skin is a reason to hate and despise.....let them all wallow in their sea of despair whilst the world continues on an upward track and damn them all.....

ONCE MORE UNTO A BREACH DEAR FRIENDS?

A pretentious Western country has just gained a charismatic, lawyer-mind (with a wife-in-law) as its leader - does that sound familiar? As his all-embracing oratory of victory, rose and fell, did he feel the hand of history (until recently passing the collection plate of iniquity) on his shoulder? Does a country that has lost its way (as 80% attest) and lost its soul, even as this Christian icon rose to the occasion, really gain from a lawyer's take on life? Would they not be better served by a philosopher imbued with judicious humility, rather than a lawyer, trained to win favourable judgement right or wrong?

In Britain we bear the scars on our backs of Charismatic Orator Winner Blair’s years of ‘leadership’. Would anyone wish THAT on America and the world? As Obama urged the masses at his feet to 'put their hands on the arc of history and bend it' I felt the dark weight of Blair on MY shoulder.

If Obama can resist the intoxication of his own (illusory - engineered at phenomenal expense) greatness (as Blair utterly failed to do) the world might get lucky. Sadly, I heard nothing in the boom of Obama to allay my fears that faith and trust will be breached.

The script has now been written for Cameron especially I liked Obama's claim that the problems will not be solved immediately nor within one term of Office. Now when will we hear that when the Tories get elected with a similar landslide for "change"?

Your reservations barrie *18 are mine, oration over substance.

As I have blogged many times, and a theme picked up again in today's Times by Daniel Finklestein, oft of Newsnight, that the electorate has changed in America.
We called it "New labour", which many of my Labour Party friends hated, and we will probably see "New Tory" far removed from the old "Blue Rinse" and the "disgusted of Tonbridge" brigade.

We will see what we will see when Obama has to face up to World and Financial problems-the realities of life and Office.

Our expensive media, junketing in America will soon return home and in the next 18 months, roughly the time Obama started, we will see a re-run of the American election as Cameron adopts hook, line and sinker the "change" rhetoric. For what? We will wait and see-but not immediately nor for at least one term of Tory office.

But just as America got fed up with Republicans, people in this country feel the same over Labour, which will have to re-invent itself when out of office, that is if the party system is still fit for purpose. We might even get what they have in China and Russia, a benevolent Autocracy. ie. give the people what they want and they will let us rule.
As Wellington said to Albert (of the pick up your musket fame) "Let battle commence!"

COLOUR BLINDNESS OR RACISM

tadhg37 (#37) "Why do so many focus on race?"

1. Because this election has been a Civil Rights campaign, which at root comes down to race and sex. You might like to ask why, it is that by 2050 , 64% of the children will be non-White.

2. Because in interviews of Black people implied that they voted for Obama BECAUSE he was black, i.e. one of them, and that he would do something for them.

If White people had said that they were voting for McCain because he was white, they would have been called racist. If Hispanics had said that they were voting for a candidate because of his or her race, or if a Jewish person did because a candidate was Jewish, would that have been OK?

There's not a lot of rationality to this matter when you look at it objectively.

Many are celebrating/reinforcing racism.

#18 Barrie

This is the problem with lawyers.

"trained to win favourable judgement right or wrong"

Especially lawyers in politics.

And favourable to whom.

Why are lawyers running planets?

Celtic Lion

A momentous day in politics; but from what I have seen a dire day in the downward spiral that is our media reporting of it. I fear more of the same.

On the basis of the heft of discussions I have witnessed so far onscreen, and our national obsession with box-ticking and national media's devotion to pigeon-holing, to get the 'right' 'balance' of candidate in future here, I am guessing the Ö÷²¥´óÐã will be going for Ru Paul for PM in 2010, with Eddy Izzard as official DPM and Peter Mandelson already embedded as actual un-voted for power in the land.

Meanwhile, congratulations to the new President-elect and all who cared enough to get out there and vote. Here's hoping he can and will deliver on all the positive changes promised.

At the very least politics Stateside has been re-energised, belief in democratic process re-established, and that can only be a good thing.

With luck there will be substance to follow and build upon this very good start many 'leaders' this side of the pond could only dream about.

while the yapparrazzi have been on their hols in the usa the uk news has plenty of red meat for them to come back for.

e.g uk gas prices have risen twice the eu rate? Is this the 'market' efficiency Gordon keeps using as a baseball bat on anyone who suggests the market as a mechanism is neither efficient, nor delivers the best price never mind 'social prices'. The winter fuel payments are just a public subsidy to foreign multinationals making record profits.

So why is centrica making 70% profit on gas storage?

why does no other country open up its energy to 'the markets'? Hasn't the banking fiasco open their eyes that all that talk of 'markets know best' been shown to be big bosh?

Why is the uk one the few countries not to have feed in tarrif that would create 100,000s of jobs, generate billions in income and lower bills?

is it just vanity that keeps ministers clinging to the mantra of 'markets deliver fair prices' despite all the evidence to the contrary?

The guardian class do not protect the public from exploitation because they are in love with false beliefs about the market.

....Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development statistics showed gas and electricity bills rose 29.7% in the past year compared with 15% in the EU. .....

THOSE DESPICABLE ILLUSIONISTS

We all abhor those who vote for the wrong motive, but to my mind to vote on the basis of virtual reality, bought, paid-for and spun by a team of ruthless magicians, hired by a political party and approved by their chosen candidate (as in: "I'm Joe White, and I approve this message") THAT is the last word in disgraceful conduct.
Such mindless voters are out-and-out, unmitigated, craven ILLUSIONISTS; eclipsing the racists, totally in thrall to ilusion, they pander to their baser instincts, and should hang their heads in shame.

IS MIGHT RIGHT? (# 22)

I gather Obama had more funds, a more disciplined 'army' and better designed 'weapons'. If that is what beat McCain, should not his victorious 'machine' be installed in the White House? Obama himself, might just be - say - a good stage performer, like so many before him. He might even have some crazy ideas that don't come out till installed. He might gather some real nutters round himself and do wild things. Might be deja vu all over again - again.

Economic Update

the deleveraging continues with worldwide factory closures, job losses and a freeze on lending showing demand destruction is beginning to show up in 'the real economy'.

CDS are being sold at 2cents on the euro. A massive 98% write down.

Libor has dropped but as banks are not lending to each other but taking from central banks its become a bit useless as an indicator.

no doubt the usual numpties will be talking about interest rate cuts when the problem is lending and just lack of cash. Long term bonds are pricing in interest rate rises as the demand for debt will require larger interest payments.

If one looks at the bond markets [the all seeing eye] the real cost of money is up to 15% -20%. that is the price firms [and some countries e.g iceland] have to pay to get a loan.


The USA has to borrow money to pay the interest on the 1.5 trillion it owes already. And Obama want to raise more debt. Commodity traders are rubbing their hands.

Just like the UK Govt is wedded to the idea the markets are the best mechanism to determine price in the gas market [hahaha] so they believe more debt is the way to get out of a debt problem. Who tells them this stuff?

And who tells them to drag bringing in a feed in tarriff that would create jobs, generate income etc? That is the way to get out of debt. By new industry with huge growth potential.

ABUSING GOLDEN GEESE

Why do so many flock to the USA and UK? Why do so few flock to Nigeria, Pakistan and Mexico?

I don't think it's the weather.

What's essential for opportunity which is minimally present in Nigeria, Pakistan and Mexico?

#18 onwards

Barrie

I think both Obama and McCain were a lot better than what could have been presented for election.

With McCain unfortunately you also got the Republican machine as well. So in a way Obama could also be a default vote.

When all said and done there wasn't much difference in the popular vote. Whatever the electoral college allocation was.

The 'system' is the filter that ultimately decides who people get to vote for. But you know that anyway.

Perhaps Obama is the best option, from what the 'system decided' was available.

The question I ask is 'this system', whether over there or here the best the best option.

Has the system become the thesis that an antithesis needs developing to compliment?

What is the other option?



What is important, what is inclusive?