The US Elections (1)
At this point, we've seen six months where everyone was certain Billary would win, followed by one week where everyone was certain Obama would win. The week of certainty that Obama would win was exacerbated by polls that showed he was certain to win New Hampshire, a certainty that did not come to pass.
For starters, if a recent amendment to the Constitution did not prohibit it, Bill would have been President for Life. He was immensely popular with 55% of the US voters, and intensely hated by 45%, but, in a Democracy, this means that, without term limits, he would have been President for the rest of his life. Sadly, Franklin Roosevelt kept Bill from having that opportunity.
In Texas, the legislature was once much more powerful (within Texas) than the US legislature is within the US. They voted that Pa Ferguson could never serve as governor of Texas, though an overwhelming majority of Texans thought he was the best possible governor. So his wife, Ma Ferguson, ran and easily won. She, of course, did whatever Pa wanted, so Pa Ferguson managed to remain as de facto governor in spite of the Legislature, and in spite of the fact that the de jure governor was not himself, but Ma.
Hillary, after Bill was forced out of office by the amendment to the Constitution, first won as Senator, then ran for President, so she wouldn't appear to be following in Ma Ferguson's footsteps. The American cartoonist Ted Rall has deeply regretted her decision to wait for eight years to show she wasn't getting elected like Ma Ferguson, because it meant (Rall's opinion) that the US had to suffer eight years of Bush. (I agree with Rall that Bush was awful, but am not sure that Billary would have been better.)
At this point, we are (for now) back where we were before Iowa: that Hillary has the election iced, partly because of Bill, and partly because of Bush.
Of course, this could all change on 5 Feb, when a plurality of the US votes.
For starters, if a recent amendment to the Constitution did not prohibit it, Bill would have been President for Life. He was immensely popular with 55% of the US voters, and intensely hated by 45%, but, in a Democracy, this means that, without term limits, he would have been President for the rest of his life. Sadly, Franklin Roosevelt kept Bill from having that opportunity.
In Texas, the legislature was once much more powerful (within Texas) than the US legislature is within the US. They voted that Pa Ferguson could never serve as governor of Texas, though an overwhelming majority of Texans thought he was the best possible governor. So his wife, Ma Ferguson, ran and easily won. She, of course, did whatever Pa wanted, so Pa Ferguson managed to remain as de facto governor in spite of the Legislature, and in spite of the fact that the de jure governor was not himself, but Ma.
Hillary, after Bill was forced out of office by the amendment to the Constitution, first won as Senator, then ran for President, so she wouldn't appear to be following in Ma Ferguson's footsteps. The American cartoonist Ted Rall has deeply regretted her decision to wait for eight years to show she wasn't getting elected like Ma Ferguson, because it meant (Rall's opinion) that the US had to suffer eight years of Bush. (I agree with Rall that Bush was awful, but am not sure that Billary would have been better.)
At this point, we are (for now) back where we were before Iowa: that Hillary has the election iced, partly because of Bill, and partly because of Bush.
Of course, this could all change on 5 Feb, when a plurality of the US votes.
posted by Dubai@Random at 10:40 pm
2 Comments:
The only thing wrong with Bill Clinton was his affair; which the US seemed to treat with more criticism and hatred than the current president who has bombed the crap out of two countries.
Actually, the amendment wasn't "recent", it was made during the presidency of Truman, who left office in 1952.
Also, it is unclear that Clinton would have won re-election even if he had been eligible. Bill was, like Hillary and Bush, a very divisive figure - he actually never got over 50% of the popular vote in either of his two elections - and there were a lot of people who, while they in general liked his policies, were ready for the end of his presidency because of his personal problems - "Clinton fatigue" it was called at the time.
There was no chance in the world that Hilary would have been elected in 2000 (one of the complaints about George Bush in that election was that he had too little experience).
Sam, the fact that Bush has much lower approval ratings than Clinton, despite roughly similar economic (unemployment, etc) performance would seem to indicate that you are not right.
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