Archive for obama

Obama vs. McCain – who is better for Ireland?

// August 30th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // bank of Ireland, economy, irish examiner, mccain, obama

Does anyone in the media know anything? This piece in the examiner today states that Ireland does better under republican presidents than under Democrats. Really? Did anyone do any fact checking at all?

The 1950s were times of bleakness matched only by the huge rate of emigration with that nice Ike (Rep) what people said they liked in the White house. Most people reckon the 60s were pretty good here economically with Lemass and his plans and the general opening up of the country, but weren’t Kennedy and Johnson Democrats? And then when things went to hell in handbasket in the early 70s that Nixon chap (Rep) was commander in chief. We had a brief boom in the late 70s due to the government getting drunk on tax cuts and inflationary public spending but the chickens and most forms of farmyard fowl came home to roost in the 80s. That would be when Ronald the non-McDonald (Rep) was letting things supply siding it up and trickle down.

Times were even tighter here under Bush I (Rep). Most people place the emergence of the Celtic Tiger from the undergrowth (though it’s birth pangs were probably felt in the latter days of Bush I) at some point between ’94 and ’96 when Clinton (Dem) was still paying attention to non-cigar related activities and our recent housing related boom and bust was under Bush II. So, I don’t there is any solid pattern there but if you were making any kind of correlation it would be more plausible to suggest that we do better when the Dems are in charge. Though we need a period of republican rule to prepare us.

As for the future it is not completely unreasonable to suggest that if Obama pushes a protectionist agenda that it may will harm our position but there is nothing in recent history to support the actual tone or title of the article.

This is Super Tuesday!

// March 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // clinton, obama, primaries, US elections, US politics

So who is it to be? On the traditional date for Super Tuesday, we’ve got 4 races for the Dems with the two smaller ones Rhode Island and Vermont expected to split one a piece for Clinton and Obama. The big delegate counts are in Ohio and Texas. And I think that Clinton will win both but she won’t make that much of a gain delegate wise. If Obama wins both then I think it will be curtains for Clinton, though she may hang in there with one last throw of the dice until Penn.

The complicated nature of the polling in Texas (it’s both a caucus and a primary!) will mean that irrespective of who wins the margin of victory would need to be huge or it won’t change much. Ohio represents the much better chance for Clinton to make some proper gains but even there it is a mess. A 60%/40% in a 4 seat district gets you 2 seats a piece. It is almost as if the Dem never thought they might end up having a tight two horse race because their systems teams neither candidate can really break away. For more detail check out the guru.

The Republicans are still going through the motions of a primary race. I do have to wonder what the Ron Paul supporters will do if he breaks 10% in Texas! Probably declare victory.

Update 5.39pm local time: I have a feeling that McCain might not break 50% in Texas.