I spent six great years living in the USA and still have a number of friendships and acquaintenances there (and increasingly relatives – six cousins and a brother and a sister living there).
I have no real political leanings when it comes to the USA but I have said on this blog and elsewhere that I have had some sympathy with George Bush and I have believed that the Canadian press for the most part has been propogating an almost silly caracature of the man almost since his inception as President. The Canadian media focus on his slip ups and linguistic bobbles is particularly interesting, given that our own Jean Cretien was the master of such things and there is clearly (as proven by Jean) no real link between these bobbles and a person’s ability to craft good policy and be a good leader.
However, this latest round of elections in the US has me thinking that Bush and the Republicans are looking more and more like Paul Martin and his Liberals each day. The TV advertising is getting ridiculous – Democrats, apparently are supporting the terrorists and will hasten another 9/11 if elected. I know the Repubs are nervous but saying that anyone is supportive of terrorism is beyond the pale. Reminds me of Harper and his imposition of martial law in Canada the day after his election (I can’t make this stuff up).
I am not a very astute political watcher as my predictions have shown even during the 2+ years history of this blog. However, it does seem to me that there needs to be a shift every once and a while to clean things up. To make the dumped party refocus on what it wants to be and to make the opposition put their money where their mouth has been.
I think getting beat has been good for the Liberal party and I suspect it will utlimately be good for the Republican party in the US.
These are challenging times for the Yanks. It’s hard to fight an enemy you can’t see. The psychological impact of 9/11 went far deeper than the human or even economic impacts.
American-style political advertisments eventually find their way north of the border. The Martin “We’re not making this up” advertisments showing a distorted face of Stephen Harper are about on par with US political ads from a decade ago. I truly hope that 10 years from now we are not forced to watch that whacked out ads the Yanks are watching these days.