I personally blame the Irish Government for the lack of money put into an effort to inform the citizenry about the crux of the treaty and what it meant for all the people of Ireland, just not the people in Dublin. I wrote about the scene  before the proposed referendum on June 11th and true to my prediction, the people of Ireland voted no.  If the Government and the EU had poured enough money into informing every single person in Ireland, I would safely take the bet that the majority of the people would have voted yes.

Part of the problem was the state-funded media channel RTE was ambiguous as ever about explaining what the Lisbon Treaty meant for Ireland. We have the folks over at the Wise Up Journal contending that RTE was trying to sell the treaty to the people of Ireland:

For an organisation that promotes itself as fair, balanced and owned by the Irish People, a question we must ask is, are RTE really fair and balanced, or is that just a marketing campaign designed to hide the fact that most of the coverage is distorted and one sided?

Then we have the Fine Gael MEP Mr. Mitchell stating that the RTE coverage was unfair and even called for an investigation into the role of the State broadcaster in its coverage of the Lisbon Treaty. I believe RTE fell into the typical media role of trying to provide both sides of the story but in doing so, it confused a lot of the people that were trying to figure out what the treaty was about. RTE should not be blamed for this but having watched RTE on a few occasions, I believe they lack transparency in terms of which side of the political divide they lean towards.

I still support the Lisbon Treaty but I feel a little sorry for President Sarkozy who is going to have a very hard time at the helm of the EU and France in trying to figure out what to do next, certainly blaming Ireland isn’t going to work but hopefully he won’t stress out too much…

On any Independence Day we should also remember the principle behind these days which is freedom. There are still many millions of people around the world who are not free and it should be the effort of every person to ensure that the world moves forward in its progress for freedom and equality for all. Another word also associated with Independence Days is “patriotism”.  Patriotism is defined in the American heritage dictionary:

Love of and devotion to one’s country.

Patriotism is a beautiful word but in recent years it has been used to divide America between those who oppose the war and those who support the war. This word should not be used for that because no matter if you oppose or support the war, you are still a patriot if you love America. Therefore I hope running up to the general election that we will hear no more nonsense about the patriotism of either candidate and that the media will focus on the issues at hand:

Happy Independence Day to all my friends in America, I really wish I was hanging out with you guys today.

A recent Gallup poll show’s the negativity of each state with regards to the Economy:

This poll clearly indicates how important the economy is to the entire of the United States and the Gallup methodology is as sound as ever conducting a proportional amount of interviews with the States population. This news is the golden egg for Senator Obama because like I suggested above; Senator McCain is going to have a hard time explaining how his economic policies are going to change the economy. Conducting a quick calculation in terms of electoral votes, Senator McCain retains a total of 72 electoral votes based on every state with a negativity score of 55% or less. This would mean a decisive victory for Senator Obama in the most optimistic scenario but a victory none the less in the most pessimistic scenario.

The task for the McCain campaign is to craft an effective economic strategy that veers away from the current GOP set of policies but not so far that Senator McCain distances himself from the Republican base. That isn’t going to happen given this his lack of knowledge on economic issues:

Why have the Obama campaign not urgently addressed this issue?

The only logical conclusion given the demonstrated political savvy of the Obama campaign is that the number crunchers have computed that this proportion of the democratic base is small and would not necessarily have an impact in the overall campaign. That does not mean Senator Obama has forgotten about some of the disgruntled democratic base but given the dwindling time before the general election, the Senator has a short amount of time to convince the so-called “left-leaning liberals” and “moderates” that he is the best person to be the next President of the United States.

Listening to some of my liberal friends in Massachusetts and the surrounding area, I realize that as Liberals we believe that a politician should embody only the principles that he believes in. Some of us want the perfect liberal president who says “No” to guns, religion in public places, and supports open borders. The reality for both sides of the political divide is that having a President that totally embodies liberal or conservative values would be detrimental to the United States. Given the size and vast political differences that span from West to East, a good President is someone that realizes he has to embody a vast number of principles, beliefs and values and makes the effort to do so.

As much trouble as some Democrats are having, the Republicans are having equally the same amount of trouble with some of the conservative base unable to get behind McCain policies on Immigration, Free Trade etc.. Both campaigns have their fair share of trouble but Senator McCain is in real trouble given the reorganization of his campaign today:

WASHINGTON - Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign has gone through its second shake-up in a year as Mr. McCain, responding to Republican concerns that his candidacy was faltering, put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations and abandoned an effort to have the campaign run by 11 regional managers, the senator’s aides said Wednesday.

There are also a few Republican Strategists who believe Senator McCain is going to lose given his current strategy as demonstrated by the “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC:

The author makes a host of valuable points in this video and if I decided to talk about all of them, I would be forced to write another dissertation which I am not inclined to do so at this point. For the next few days I will touch on a few points that he has mentioned in more detail but for today I want to talk about the position of America in the world. It is an undisputed fact that the world is not what it used to be 20 years ago, America used to be the sole power on the global throne but is now forced to share that throne with the likes of China, India and Russia.

This is not a bad change as the author mentions but he correctly calls the media out for fanning the flames of anti-globalization. There are two phrases in this speech that really mean a lot to me: “inter-dependent” and “work together.” Too often every nation put’s its own national interest above those of the global village so much so that we have reached a stalemate with regards to the climate crisis because no matter how much the West goes green, the Indians and the Chinese are going to continue setting up coal power plants to meet the needs of their burgeoning economies. Discussion is never considered because the current administration only talks to countries whose actions affect the national interest which is not global warming since the GOP does not believe in that “hullabaloo.”

Mr. Zakaria suggests and I agree with him on this point that the leadership of America needs to work with the global powers to counter-act threats like global warming, terrorism, and economic depression. America also needs to treat everyone equally rather than holding a standard for it’s allies and a different standard for everyone else. It is throug this change in foreign policy and attitude that America will grow as well as those countries currently driving the global economy.

I was initially caught off guard by the complexity of this game as you are required to generate money, give speeches, and manage your opponent’s success. The hardest part of the game was figuring out what strategy to take; in this instance I decided to go for the big states and even tried to turn Texas blue but former President Grant refused to relinquish his hold on the state. With one week to go until the general election, this is what the polling data looked like:

The blue states show my likely wins while the red show former President Grant’s likely wins. Of course Senator Obama won. Here is the victory shot:

I defeated former President Grant decisively however it must be noted that it is going to get even more difficult as the game progresses. I also outspent him by $2 million dollars which begs the question in reality, does Senator Obama’s money edge give him a better chance of winning?

This game is by no means a comprehensive simulation but it gives me an idea of how important a role money can play in a campaign. Getting your message out there is critical and can really help change the minds of voters regarding a candidate.  One year ago, I would have said that Senator Obama needed all the money he could get to help spread awareness about who he is and what he stands for howoever awareness is not the issue at the moment. The current issue is the far-left feeling that Senator Obama has betrayed them when he has done what every other political candidate has done before him, move towards the center in order to ensure the greatest appeal to the largest number of voters. The key at the end of the day for us liberals is that we get a Democrat in office, is it not?

Not in the fantasy land of Robert Mugabe where he might term these 3 million people “malcontents.” The situation is even tougher because of the politics involved. Robert Mugabe is well regarded in Africa for fighting for independence for his country therefore the leaders of the African Union give him a wide bearing. This is understandable but antiquated, how can the leaders of the AU abide by the level of violence and intimidation that preceded the election?

We can rule out an intervention from the U.K because they have their military committed to Afghanistan and Iraq with insufficient capacity for an effective operation in Zimbabwe. Can you imagine the headlines if they did act?

Ex-colonial power reasserts control in Zimbabwe…

The U.S could probably go in with some sort of military force but the PR fallout from such an action would be slightly less than the U.K. The only solution is for the AU leaders to combine their military might and send in a peacekeeping force to ensure free and  fair election. Action is not likely to occur soon therefore I urge everyone to write to their designated South African ambassador in their respective countries and urge a greater effort to remove Robert Mugabe since “quiet diplomacy” is currently showing no progress. The address of the South African Ambassador in Washington:

Ambassador Welile Nhlapo
4301 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Van Ness Building, Suite 2200
Washington D.C
20008

The title of the book is “Right Is Wrong” written by Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, I don’t think many people have not heard about her but she runs the biggest online newspaper in America. The Huffington Post is the bane of many Republicans but the best place to read liberal news if you are a liberal like myself. The book has received mixed reviews on amazon.com with 9 people giving it a 5 star rating, 1 person giving it a 4 star rating and the other 6 people giving it below 3 stars.

The book is 331 pages in length divided into 15 chapters and took me just over a month to read. It is well researched with the occasional generalization that is blatantly obvious but helps drive the point home. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to any liberal or independent who is debating about which party to support in the general election. The author touches on some valuable points with regards to immigration and healthcare with the last chapter focusing on Senator McCain.

Some of you may immediately think that this is another Republican/GOP bashing book but a startling fact that I found out while reading this book is that Mrs. Huffington is a former Republican and has actually travelled on the straight talk express. She knows John McCain and would actually have supported him if he had not “lost his soul” as she claims while courting the radical right. If you support John McCain, I would encourage you to purchase this book just for the last chapter where she compares the old John McCain to the new one and I have to say I would have supported the old Senator McCain after reading that chapter.

That being said, the new Senator McCain is not what America needs but I believe I have hammered this point home in earlier posts. The book is filled with valuable content so it is hard to choose one favorite passage but here is the best of the best:

The Right is wrong on immigration because they favor continued tough talk over policy reform. One suspects that a hidden reason the Right is wrong on immigration is their need for a scapegoat to divert attention from their massive failures in domestic and foreign policy. There’s a simple way to transform all these jobs American’s don’t want to do into jobs Americans would love to do: raise the wages for them. At a certain price, anyone would clean a toilet.

Out of all the politically inclined books I have reviewed on this site so far, this is by far the longest and the best. It is not everyone’s cup of tea but I would still give it an 8 out of 10 for excellent content but not 100% factually correct on some issues.