The polls were right all along — America has elected Barack Obama, and proved itself not to be a hateful, bigoted nation. I hope anyone who secretly expected a racist “Bradley effect” to propel John McCain to the White House is now hanging their head in shame: McCain won an honest 47% and bowed out [...]
Filed under: barackobama, democracy, election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, republican, uspolitics on November 5th, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user 1flatworld.
For me, the story of the U.S. election run-in has not been the story of the inevitable march to power of Barack Obama. It’s been the story of how an immeasurably more experienced candidate — John McCain — has rendered himself unelectable with a solid month of cackhanded campaigning. When [...]
Filed under: election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on October 28th, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user shazam791.
Of all the bizarre and interesting features of the 2008 US presidential election, here’s one you may not have noticed: it’s the first time both tickets have been topped by a serving senator. It guarantees that America’s 44th president will be the third to assume the job from a Senate [...]
Filed under: barackobama, democracy, election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on October 8th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Photograph courtesy of Flickr user jmtimages
Funny how often you hear talk of the “Great American Novel”, as though the only national identity worth having is one that can be embodied in a book. In the latest much-publicised G.A.N. contender, Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland (a terrific piece of work notwithstanding the hype), America is not so much [...]
Filed under: barackobama, election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on September 8th, 2008 | No Comments »
Photograph courtesy of John McCain 2008.
I am hugely enjoying John McCain’s 2008 presidential run — and it’s obvious he is too. I love the witty adverts and the non-messianic tone. I admire his gravitas, his experience, his foreign policy convictions and his efforts to clean up Washington. His astonishing gamble on a 44-year old Alaskan [...]
Filed under: election2008, johnmccain, jonathanbirch, uspolitics on August 30th, 2008 | 8 Comments »
John McCain ought to have a big problem - namely that Republicans don’t actually like him very much and it’s Republicans that he has to convince to make him the party’s nominee. As I’ve argued recently, McCain’s popularity comes from a relatively small section of the Republican broad church.
So far, his saving grace is that [...]
Filed under: election2008, fredthompson, johnmccain, mattclifford, rudyriuliani, uspolitics on January 23rd, 2008 | No Comments »
Following on from yesterday’s post, the Michigan Republican exit polls also make interesting reading. However, income, class and education are no longer the important variables (though, crudely, it would seem that as you get richer you’re slightly more likely to vote Romney and slightly less likely to vote Huckabee; but that’s not exactly shocking). What’s [...]
Filed under: election2008, johnmccain, mattclifford, mittromney, uspolitics on January 16th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
About a month ago, after receiving a large volume of emails on the topic, the journalists whose discussion forms the highlight of my week in the form of Slate’s Political Gabfest were forced to explain their reasons for referring to Hillary Clinton as ‘Hillary’ while others, such as John McCain, were respectively cited as ‘Senator [...]
Filed under: barackobama, culture, election2008, gender, hillaryclinton, johnmccain, uspolitics on April 5th, 2007 | No Comments »
