Super Tuesday

// February 4th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Super Tuesday, US politics

I know my record is all over the place at this stage but I’m going to throw these out there just so I can say “I completely got that wrong”.

I think Obama should take Georgia and Illinois handily enough and may just swing
California,
Colorado
oddly enough Utah,
Missouri and
Alabama.

That would leave Hillary with

Arizona
Connecticut
Deleware
New York
New Jersey
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Oklahoma
Tennessee

and the greater number of delegates but not enough to close out the race and there are big states to come like Ohio, Texas, Penn.

Romney may well take California but McCain is going to win too many other states for it to matter, if Huckabee had made this about who gets to be VeeP, he might have swung some more Romney voters in the South.

It’s all about character

// February 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I find the conniptions that many on the Republican right seem to be having over John McCain being the likely Republican nominee for the Presidency of the United States quite revealing. The president is supposed to be the person that the buck stops with. I would expect the person so charged to be able to understand policy but not that they be the fount of all knowledge when it comes to policy. Instead the Limbaugh’s of the world want to know what the nominee thinks about each and every issue in advance and is he/she sound on that issue. Rather than consider the concept that the right choice might be the person who can make a judgment call on a issue that is yet to arise. So McCain failure to be onside regarding immigration has made him a villain to the right.

As Sorkin said via Michael Douglas “I’ve been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.”

I would also suggest that if someone from Huckabee’s team were to suggest in a manner that gets the message out there without being too defeatist that the race for them is now about who would be the best conservative VeeP to keep McCain in line then he might be able to swing some southern states that appear to be out of reach for him at the moment with the conservative vote too split between Romney and Huckabee. It is entirely possible that if McCain runs away with the primaries that he will do his own thing with regard to VeeP. Remember he is 71 and he will know that the VeeP have to be someone that can do the job as McCain would do it. He could even decide to step outside the usual Senator/Governor from a swing state. That might involve plucking a congressman or even a figure outside current mainstream elected politics. Say Christine Whitman, who would put New Jersey in play.

All about the Budget numbers

// February 4th, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

As the budget numbers fall apart, the media seems to still be buying the line that everything is on track. See the problem with the budget has always been that anyone can add 2+2 and get 4, it’s ensuring that 2 is in fact going to be there that is the problem.

Cowen had 20,000 net jobs for 2008, the Central Bank last week said 16,000

Cowen had growth of 3%, the predictions are now ESRI 2.4% Central Bank agrees with the minster .

House prices which according to those in the market would at worst be stagnant dropped 7% last year and now they’re saying a drop of 5% (does that translate to a 12% drop? ) the problem is of course not alone one for first time buyers who paid over the odds in 2005/2006 but those who traded up and took on significantly larger mortgages along with the parents of the first time buyers who either guarantor on the mortgages or perhaps took out loans themselves to provide them with deposits. The problem will be that they may come to be much less willing to spend and if so that directly impacts on the service industry.

All this at the very beginning of the year, how much worse could it all become?

http://dansullivan.blogspot.com/2007/12/2007-fudget.html

Again we have to wonder how real the numbers coming from the department of finance were back in Spring 2007.

• GDP will increase by 3 per cent in real terms;
• 24,000 new jobs will be created with the total number at work increasing by a little over 1 per cent;
• Inflation will ease and the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices will average 2.4 per cent