Is “Obama-hate” McCain’s last-ditch strategy?

Is “Obama-hate” McCain’s last-ditch strategy?

Will de-humanising his opponent reinforce the racist vote? One thing that became clear during the second 90 minute presidential debate is that John McCain is not going to do anything in public that hides his clear animosity towards his opponent. Clearly his camp has worked out that “Obama-hate” is going to be the best way of getting the Republican vote out on November 4th and McCain’s whole demeanour seemed geared to that end. And who is to say that it…

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Will McCain look at Obama tonight?

Will McCain look at Obama tonight?

Is there anything the 72 year old can do to get back into the race? All eyes in the American presidential election will be on Nashville tonight where John McCain and Barack Obama take part in the second presidential debate. After this there will only be one event left. After the first encounter between the two senators most pundits scored it at about even. That, however, was not the verdict of the public and in the voting intention polls that…

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Will the planned package settle city nerves?

Will the planned package settle city nerves?

This is an original cartoon by Marf for LondonSketchBook.com Can Darling-Brown do anything to restore stability? With a package expected to be announced this evening the big question is whether it will be enough and will bring stability to the financial system. Clearly this has been the most dramatic day so far in the crisis with huge drops in the value of bank shares and hundreds of thousands of UK savers facing big worries after the Icelandic bank, Icesave stopped…

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Is Labour’s boost confined to places where it doesn’t matter?

Is Labour’s boost confined to places where it doesn’t matter?

Could the move to Gord be in the heartlands – not in the marginals? Firstly the caveats: As I’ve been saying for weeks polling during the conference season is almost always very odd and we need to wait until the end October surveys at the earliest before we can start drawing conclusions. Secondly looking at sub-samples in polling data can often deceive. But on Saturday the Guardian’s polling writer whose judgement I respect, Julian Glover, produced an analysis on the…

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Will this help boost or impede Labour’s recovery?

Will this help boost or impede Labour’s recovery?

Will ministers be thanked or get the blame? Reproduced above are some of the front pages this morning – different papers all telling the same story. Could October 6th 2008 go down as reference point we will look back to in the years to come – or is there much worse on the way? Who knows? We are in uncharted territory and for those who like forecasting elections and betting on political outcomes some of the certainties appear to be…

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What if the Republicans “flipped the ticket”?

What if the Republicans “flipped the ticket”?

Why £23 of my Mandy profit is going on PRESIDENT Palin As I have reported before I continue to be intrigued by Sarah Palin. Is she up to something? Could conceivably she try to boot McCain off the top of the ticket even though we are just four weeks from polling day? Are there any betting opportunities? All this has been reinforced by a column in the New York Times by Frank Rich in which he contrasts McCain’s health and…

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October 6: Happy birthday Brown’s biggest cock-up!

October 6: Happy birthday Brown’s biggest cock-up!

Is Jackie Ashley right – is it now “Emergency Labour”? I thought that we could not let this day pass by without recalling that it was exactly a year ago, on October 6th 2007, that Gordon Brown recorded his fateful interview with Andrew Marr calling off a late autumn general election. Everything about the current political situation derives from that point which saw a U-turn in both Brown and David Cameron’s fortunes. For the extraordinary media honeymoon that Brown had…

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