Elections

...the majority of countries have elections, and the majority of those countries are not democracies.

The above quote from Whatever It Is, I'm Against It says it all about the present Afghan and soon-to-come Iraqi elections. Read his whole post, I won't repeat the points here.

In Australia, despite a string of lies and scandals and Iraq, but with quite some help from the Murdoch Empire, the Howard government got re-elected. This may contribute to a Bush victory in the USA. On the other hand, Green votes grew from 5% to 7.2% - after Canada, a second Anglo-Saxon country with a stronger progressive presence.

Regarding US elections, I think two points about the debates are worth a note. First is the buzz about the possibility that Bush wears an earpiece and gets his punchlines[*] read to him through it (deeper analysis). Now I always viewed Bush as a puppet; but never thought of a so, what do I call it, close control - I was more thinking of a stupid guy who can be easily convinced by the real policy authors among his subordinates, tough sometimes these subordinates are in conflict and Bush 'chooses'. However, if Bush really gets his points from an earpiece, he must be a conscious puppet.

The second point is about the Democrat's campaign. Given how successfully the DNC teamed up with the RNC to peddle the "Angry Dean" spin, it should be no problem now to successfully peddle an "Angry Bush" spin - with the added benefit of it being both true and on-point (for Bush's anger is of a blind man with Caesar complex kind, neither of which sane people would wish as the quality of a leader; while Dean's 'anger' was of the justified kind). But if they won't even capitalise on this, why would anyone expect them to take upon the Repubs on any major issue even after an election victory? As the briefly emerging from the dead Billmon wrote:

Anger Management

If Kerry and the Dems can't make an issue out of the fact that the president of the United States is utterly incapable of controlling his hairtrigger temper, they don't deserve to win this election.

I mean, the man is a walking time bomb.

Finally, for a future outlook, I think the most significant real election next year will be the one in Italy - it will define the direction European right-wing populism will take.

[*]: The voiceover heard with Bush's D-Day speech seems better explained by a re-sepaker of a speech-recognition device.