Campaigning for the 2008 election did start earlier than any other in US history, but even so, the reluctance of major Republicans to declare is interesting. Pres. Obama has looked vulnerable in recent months, but it's clear his potential opponents for next year's election are rightly wary of his campaigning skills.
It was especially shocking for me as I briefly met Congresswoman Giffords in Texas, eight years ago when she was a State Senator.
In many ways, there has always been some form of divide in US politics. It has been intense in the last few years but there has been little violence compared to the past. In the 1960s, often relating to the issue of segregation, there were many political assassinations in the US, most notably President Kennedy, his brother Robert, and Martin Luther King.
Hopefully Congresswoman Giffords, a rising star in the Democratic party, will recover and the shooting will be a tragic but isolated attack. However, as was seen in the UK after the attack on Stephen Timms last year, it does endanger a fundamental part of a democratic society, which is the right of the people to have access to their elected representatives.
This sort of thing happens at the end of all midterms, what makes this time different is that the result of this election means we already know the result of the next – Barack Obama will win a second term.
Of course, using history to predict the future is very dangerous, but there are other things to cheer up the Democrats today. Tea Party candidates did very well in many states, which has unnerved many moderate Republicans as the Tea Party's views are significantly to the right of most American voters. And yet, this insurgent group will have a great influence over the next Republican Nominee for President, who may end up being unelectable as a result.
One other thing that might make Pres. Obama feel a little better. With Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, the President can blame them when things go wrong.
Public service cuts will no doubt be the main talking point at the Conservative Party conference. Although the cuts will be unpopular with many workers, David Cameron is not risking his life by implementing them. This is not the case for Rafael Correa, the President of Ecuador.
Last Thursday, President Correa was shot at and had tear gas thrown at him by this own police and military after the President announced a cut in their pay. Loyal troops were able to rescue Mr. Correa from a hospital where he'd taken refuge, but for short time it looked like the democratically elected President might be forced from power.
Military coup d'états are not uncommon in Latin American countries, Ecuador has seen several coups and military juntas, as have most South American nations. The last coup in Ecuador was just five years ago when President Lucio Gutiérrez was forcibly removed from office at the point of a gun.
The number of coups in that part of the world is partly due to culture, but another reason is the system of government. Almost all Latin American countries are Presidential republics where the head of state is also the head of government and Commander-in-chief, very similar to the system set out in the United States Constitution (once described as America's most dangerous export).
It would be wrong to condemn all Latin American counties. Today voters in Brazil are electing a new President. Opinion polls suggest that Dilma Rousseff will win comfortably and become Brazil's first female President. Brazil is seen as an emerging superpower and a stable government is an important part of this success story, but Brazil's history is not trouble free, having had a few coups of its own in the 1960s. Like Ecuador, Brazil's constitution is very similar to that of the United States.
The text of the US Constitution seems very sensible and democratic. The states are given great autonomy with the Congress to deal with federal issues and a President who acts as a unifying national figure, dealing mainly with foreign policy and defence. When put into practice however, it doesn't work like that. The executive branch is incredibly powerful and there is little accountability for the President. In countries which use versions of the US Constitution (although not the US itself) this has led to dictatorial Presidents who could only be removed by the military in a coup.
In 2008 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the countries of the world in order of the state of their freedom and democracy. This list was called the 'Democracy Index' and out of the thirty countries classed as 'full democracies' only four were presidential republics (the United States, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay and Costa Rica). Most of the world's presidential republics were classed as 'authoritarian regimes'. By contrast twenty-five out of the world's thirty full democracies have a parliamentary system.
It is no coincidence that former Iberian colonies (which almost universal became presidential republics) have a history of military dictatorships and economic instability, whereas former British colonies (which almost universal became parliamentary democracies) have a long history of stable government and economic prosperity. There are several exceptions of course, but in general parliamentary systems protect democracy.
A parliamentary system gives systemic accountability as the executive is directly answerable to the legislature. If a Prime Minister in a parliamentary democracy suddenly became tyrannical, he or she could be removed by their parliamentary party, by the parliament itself, or even by the head of state. It is incredibly difficult to peacefully remove a President in a presidential republic (hence the number of military coups in such countries).
I am not saying that presidential republics are doomed to become tyrannical, but if you happen to find yourself choosing a new system of government for a country, I'd suggest a Parliament and Prime Minister, not a President and a Congress.
The Democrats in the United States unveiled their new logo today, perhaps in a hope to reenergise the brand after being damaged from two years in power. It had looked like the midterms in November, which elect all of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate, would be an unhappy time for the Democratic party, but recent primary results have given some hope to the party of President Obama.
Tea Party candidates have won the Republican nominations in several Senate and Congressional seats currently held by the Democrats which the Republicans had hoped to win this November. However, the Tea Party candidates, although able to galvanise the far-right, look unelectable when put before the general public (according to the polls).
In order to regain power, a party must move to the centre. This is true of parties, both left and right, in all countries of the world. However, the Republican voters (if not the Republican leadership) are moving to the right.
This trend can best be seen in the fortunes of Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska and John McCain's 2008 running mate, who has come to personify the Tea Party movement. It's almost certain that she will announce her candidacy for President early next year and, if the strength of the Tea Party continues, she has a very good chance of getting the Republican nomination for the 2012 Presidential election. Governor Palin is extraordinarily popular with the right wing of American politics, but she is truly terrifying to Democrats, independents and even moderate Republicans.
The Tea Party came into being as the American right's response to President Obama's left wing policies. It would be ironic if the strength of the Tea Party led to President Obama securing a second term in the White House.
There was an element of schadenfreude watching the Australian election this morning. The incumbent Labor party (which went into the election with an unelected Prime Minister) lost its majority, although the opposition couldn't get enough seats to claim victory, meaning there was a hung parliament. It all felt very familiar.
Of cource, there are a many differences between what happened in the UK in May. For example, there is no Australian equivalent of the Liberal Democrats for the two main parties to negotiate with as the remaining seats, which will determine the next government of Australia, are not held by a single political party but a collection of independents, each with very different agendas.
Just a few months ago it was all very different. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was far ahead in the polls and it looked like he would easily lead the Australian Labor Party into a second term. Meanwhile, the opposition was in a certain amount of disarray having changed its leader three times in as many years, the latest one being Tony Abbott, born in London, who was seen as something of a joke by the media.
It all changed very quickly when Labor's poll numbers began to dip. Just eight weeks ago, Mr. Rudd was forced into a sudden leadership contest which he lost in a shock defeat to his own Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. The insinuation was that Ms. Gillard, who was born in Wales, had been planning the coup against Kevin Rudd for years and was just waiting for the perfect time to strike.
So it was Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Australia's first woman PM, who led Labor into this election and its surprisingly bad result. It seems the government lost support for many reasons, but a big one was that the Australian public didn't like the way Mr. Rudd had been treated by his party. Another problem for Labor was that they were unable to run on their relatively good record in government as the first question would have been "if you were doing so well, why did you ditch your Prime Minister?"
Michael Heseltine famously said "he who wields the dagger never wears the crown". Ms. Gillard appears to have wielded the dagger against Mr. Rudd, and she wears the crown, for now, but how much longer?
It is going to be an interesting few days in Australia and there could be a change in government and another new PM in the form of Tony Abbott, or maybe Julia Gillard will become Australia's first elected woman PM. Negotiations on government forming will start soon.
As is often the case with Australia, it's very far away but somehow seems very close to home.
In the last four years Japan has had six Prime Ministers. Quite a startling fact, made more startling by the variety of reasons for their departure. Junichiro Koizumi, who had been Prime Minister for five years, retired in 2006 and was replaced by Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. On his first anniversary of coming to power, Mr. Abe resigned for health reason, although during his year in power there had been two resignations and a suicide in his cabinet as a result of scandals which, amongst other things, lead to a significant drop in the government's poll numbers. Yasuo Fukuda was the next Prime Minister, but he was forced to resign two days short of his first anniversary in the job after failing to get crucial legislation through the upper house of the Diet (the Parliament of Japan).
Mr. Fukuda was replaced by Taro Aso who left office less than a year later in a more conventional way for democratic leaders – he lost the general election. The election's winner was Yukio Hatoyama who ended sixty years of almost uninterrupted Liberal Democratic Party government. It was hoped that an electoral mandate would lead to a sustained period in power for the new Prime Minister; in fact Mr. Hatoyama was in office for less than seven months. The latest Prime Ministerial departure was due to the cabinet resigning en masse following the breaking of an election promise to close the US base on Okinawa. The next and (as I write this) current Prime Minister of Japan is Naoto Kan, the former Minister of Finance. Mr. Kan must be hoping he can last longer than his most recent predecessors.
During Gordon Brown's periods of unpopularity in the country, Labour MPs had plotted on several occasions to remove the Prime Minister from power. The argument against such action was the myth that changing the PM twice in one Parliament would be democratically unsound. Tony Blair won the election in 2005 and was replaced by Gordon Brown in 2007 who thought about having his own election three years earlier than was required, before infamously changing his mind at the last second. As the economic crisis emerged and Labour's place in the poll dropped lower than shares in Northern Rock, Labour MPs began to wonder if a different, more media aware Prime Minister might help the party's chances more than Mr. Brown.
To change a PM a second time without consulting the people, so the argument against removing Mr. Brown went, would lead to an immediate election. This argument seemed to prevent a coup against the PM as Labour MPs feared what would happened to them if there were an election soon after they'd stabbed their leader in the back. However, as Japan shows, the argument was flawed as in a parliamentary system, the people elected the legislature which then determines the government. Another flaw in the argument is this; why is changing the Prime Minister once without an election acceptable, but not twice or three times or more?
Perhaps Japan shows the real argument against such action and why continuity in government is important. Aside from the democratic issue, Prime Ministers need to be able to feel comfortable and confident doing the job (this is true of all work) but it takes time before this can happen. Also, a nation's current prestige is often related to the people who are in power at the moment. Just think of the world's view of the United States under George W. Bush and compared it to the US under President Obama. In an economic crisis, a nation's prestige is important, but not knowing a country's political leader because they change every few months cannot help that country's standing.
A few weeks ago I received an email from a friend of mine in Bogotá, who talked of an excitingly close election which could see a change in government for the first time in over a decade. She was not however, talking about the UK election.
Today Colombians are going to the polls to elect their next President, who in Colombia is the head of the executive as well as head of state. If no one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote there will be a run-off election next month between the two highest polling candidates in today's vote.
The incumbent, Alvaro Uribe, has been President for the last eight years, having served two terms. The constitution prevents him from running for a third, which President Uribe must think is a shame as he currently has an approval rating of about 60%. In fact President Uribe did try to change the constitution to allow him to run for another term – but this was vetoed by Colombia's constitution court.
You might have thought that President Uribe's popularity would aid his hand chosen successor – the former Defence Minister, Juan Manuel Santos - but Uribe's choice isn't doing as well as expected. Mr. Santos still leads the polls but not enough to avoid a run-off election. The other main candidate is Antanas Mockus, the former Mayor of Bogotá and the Green party candidate – he was also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease earlier this year.
One of the criticisms of the UK election was all the main parties were effetely the same ideologically - this cannot be said of the Colombian election. Mr. Santos would continue the conservative legacy of President Uribe, Mr. Mockus on the other hand would signal a radical change in Colombia's domestic and foreign policy.
Change is an exciting prospect in any election, but a radical shift in politics at the top might destabilise some of Colombia's more delicate issues such as fighting against powerful drug cartel and left-wing guerrilla groups.
Santos and Mockus are both far ahead of all the other candidates in the polls and are likely to face a run-off vote, in which anything could happen. Expect more from the land of Shakira very soon.
UPDATE My Colombian friend just Skyped me to say that Juan Manuel Santos received 47% of the vote, with Antanas Mockus only getting about 22%.
This is something of a surprise, as it was expected to be much closer. There will be a run-off but it seems almost certain Mr. Santos will be Colombia's next President. It seems continuity has won over change.
On 16 December 1773 a group of colonists in Boston harbour, in the British colony of Massachusetts Bay, boarded several ships which were carrying tea bound for Britain. In protest to the British imposed taxes on tea, the colonists through the ships' cargo into the water of the harbour. This became known as the 'Boston tea party' and was one of the earliest rumblings of the American Revolution, which lead to the formation of the United States.
As a Brit, I feel it is my duty to point out that the taxes on tea were actually at an historic low in 1773, and many of the people who through the tea overboard were in fact smugglers who were worried that cheap tea would threaten their illicit business. Also, the taxes in the American colonies were far lower than those in Great Britain. But of course, the people of Britain elected the people who taxed them, the colonists did not.
The story of 'brave colonists' opposing taxation without representation became part of America's creation myth and the tea party became a byword for a very American type of rebellion.
So it was no surprise when, last year, a group of Americans, who were unhappy with President Obama's economic stimulus bill, bailouts and healthcare reform, began a series of protests called 'tea parties'. Within just a few months, what was just a group of disgruntled protesters, has now became one of the most influential political movements in the US today. The Tea Party movement's sudden rise has been compared to the similarly sudden rise of the movement which brought Barrack Obama to power in 2008, although neither group would like the comparison.
It is an oversimplification to say the Tea Party movement is just a group of people who oppose President Obama, but it is true to say the vast majority of the movement's supporters do not like him. Some of the protesters have very good reasons for this, some just don't like the President for no good reason at all.
Like 2008, this is an election year in the US, and although the President himself is not up for election, all of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate will be facing the voters on 2 November this year.
Last Tuesday there were several primaries to choose party nominees for the elections in November and there were some surprise results which were said to be caused by the Tea Party's influence. The most notable of these was Rand Paul who won the Republican nomination for one of Kentucky's Senate seats. Paul is a libertarian and seen as the Tea Party's favoured candidate.
The power of the Tea Party has not been welcomed in all parts of the Republican party. In Florida, Governor Charles Crist had hoped to get the Republican nomination for one of Florida's Senate seats, but instead the nomination went to Marco Rubio, who was strongly supported by the Tea Party. Crist is now standing as an independent candidate, which could split the Republican vote in November and lead to the Democrat's nominee winning the seat.
Some say President Obama should be concerned about the power of the Tea Party, I don't think he has too much to worry about. Although, I wonder if people said the same thing to the British government in 1773?
I'm Philip, and the idea for this blog was suggested to me by my friend, Deborah. I suspect that she may be the only one who’ll actually read it, hence its name.
It is my hope that this blog will give an impartial commentary on politics (often rare in the blogosphere) for those people who are perhaps not avid followers of politics, but nevertheless want to know about the goings on of the political world.
