Obama won by some six million votes among well over 100 million cast. He also outspent McCain. Massively: The Illinois senator harvested more campaign cash than anyone before him, using both the Internet and traditional high-roller dinners to bring in more than $650 million from some 3 million donors for […]
Remember the mighty Spengler’s prediction only a few weeks ago? Thus: … McCain will win in November, and by a landslide, barring some unforeseen event. Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. He no doubt […]
Lots of gracious congratulations coming to Barack Obama from conservative commentators/pundits, including this one. And this. But, heck, you can’t please everyone. As ever, Mark Steyn nails it: I think we are near a point at which America joins the rest of the west as a center-left society — that’s […]
One of the best things about writing a blog is that like an exotic plant it somehow grows in strange directions and shapes and thereby introduces you to all sorts of new people round the planet. Such as someone who saw my post on PM Qualities and posted a positive comment, Andrew Cooper. Check […]
Maybe not: Think about it this way: if aging hack John McCain, unable to enthuse his own base, running after a disastrous eight years of a George W Bush Administration in the face of an utterly hostile mainstream media, a collapsing economy, and the as-yet undetermined aftermath of an unpopular foreign […]
Finally, the USA votes. As observed from the depths of Oxfordshire, England this campaign shows the strengths and weaknesses of US-style democracy in vast proportions. The strengths? A succession of epic battles – anyone remember Hillary? The leading candidates making it to this point have shown astonishing leadership, stamina and […]
A reader responds to the Mr Incredible example in my piece about how far one is prepared to inflict – and take – pain in a vital negotiation: Well yes, but that was a crucial moment, because it showed Mirage that this was not simply a contest of strength. It allowed her […]
And here is Edward Lucas castigating the latest EU signs of ‘moving on’ following the Russian dismemberment of Georgia, not least the UK position: Britain’s decision to allow France to lead the European Union back into normal relations with Vladimir Putin’s ex-KGB regime in Russia is one of the most […]
The subject of the massive KAP aluminium works in Montenegro is always fascinating. It is a huge plant by the standards of tiny Montenegro, hence its fortunes (or otherwise) weigh heavily on the local political mind. And because aluminium production requires colossal amounts of electricity, the problems of pushing that […]
The core ideas from the Stalinist psychology proclaimed by the bland villain Ellsworth Toohey in the Fountainhead: Kill man’s sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognise greatness. Great men can’t be ruled … Don’t deny the concept of greatness. Destroy it from within. Set up standards of achievement open to […]
