Politik: Obama om vetenskap och nördighet!

VETENSKAP | Alla har en liten ”nerd” inom sig. President Barack Obama samlar t.ex. serietidningar med Spindelmannen och Conan.

Detta åtminstone enligt en lista som Jon Swaine på The Telegraph samanställde 2008 över mindre kända fakta och kuriositeter kring Obama.

I en stor intervju i Popular Science om Obama-administrationens politik kring vetenskaps- och forskningsfrågor under dessa två mandatperioder kunde Cliff Ransom inte låta bli att också ställa en fråga om presidentens nördighet.

PS: Do you consider yourself a nerd and, if so, what’s your nerdiest pastime?

BO: Well, my administration did write a pretty detailed response to a petition, explaining why we wouldn’t build a real-life Death Star, so I’d like to think I have at least a little nerd credibility built up.

What’s remarkable is the way ”nerd” is such a badge of honor now. Growing up, I’m sure I wasn’t the only kid who read Spider-Man comics and learned how to do the Vulcan salute, but it wasn’t like it is today. I get the sense that today’s young people are proud to be smart and curious, to design new things, and tackle big problems in unexpected ways. I think America’s a nerdier country than it was when I was a kid—and that’s a good thing!

Tidskriftsomslag: Popular Science, mars-april 2016.

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Humor: Tories inför EU-folkomröstningen!

Bid: Matt. Fler teckningar av honom i The Telegraph.

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Politik: Är det hjärtat eller hjärnan som avgör?

VAL 2016 | Republikanska väljare har ett dilemma när de nu skall nominera presidentkandidat inför kommande presidentval.

Antingen rösta mot sitt samvete för att öka sannolikheten att vinna presidentvalet. Eller rösta enligt samvetet och i slutänden riskera förlora mot Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump, den sannolika segraren hos republikanerna, ser idag inte ut att kunna vinna mot Clinton enligt opinionsundersökningarna.

Rent logiskt borde det därför vara bättre för republikaner att lägga sin röst på en kandidat som har så stora chanser som möjligt att vinna presidentvalet. Detta speciellt när kandidaterna, åtminstone för en utomstående, inte skilja sig allt för mycket åt ideologiskt och politiskt.

Men kärnväljare röstar sällan taktiskt i interna val. Ofta är det hjärtat som styr. Detta speciellt när det handlar om att välja vem man vill skall företräda en i val.

Här skiljer sig inte amerikanska partianhängare  från partimedlemmar i Sverige som skall utse t.ex. en ny partiledare.

Få medlemmar lägger sin röst på sitt andra eller tredjehandsval bara för att öka sannolikheten att partiet skall göra bättre ifrån sig i riksdagsval eller i konkurrens med andra partiers partiledare. Det finns en viss tendens till önsketänkande när man röstar med hjärtat.

Och med tanke på att den republikanska presidentkandidaten sannolikt kommer att möta Hillary Clinton i presidentvalet borde republikanska väljare kanske vara mer intresserade av matcha fram den som har störst chans mot henne. Men icke.

En ledare i The Telegraph har tittat på republikanernas dilemma:

On Nov 8, American voters will choose his new opposite number in the White House. If the polls are to be believed, Donald Trump is poised to seize the Republican nomination. Yet the “political prediction market” – a new index that factors in the polls and other survey data – is not so sure. At present, this measure gives the populist billionaire a 34 per cent chance of winning the nomination, only a whisker ahead of Senators Ted Cruz (31 per cent) and Marco Rubio (30 per cent).

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, seems preordained to seize the Democratic crown. As for who might have the best chance of thwarting her ambition to be America’s first female president, the polls deliver an emphatic answer: almost anyone except Mr Trump. One recent survey placed Mrs Clinton 11 points clear of Mr Trump; in December her lead over the property mogul averaged 5 per cent.

Put Mrs Clinton up against Mr Cruz, however, and her advantage plummets to 0.6 per cent. Confront her with Mr Rubio and the tables are turned completely: the young Senator has an average lead of 1.6 per cent. The message for the Republicans should be clear: if you want to win, then don’t choose Mr Trump. But the party base appears in no mood to listen, so Mrs Clinton must be the favourite to enter the White House.

Trumps kampanj hoppas däremot att deras väljarpotential är betydligt större än vad som antyds i opinionsundersökningar.

Det finns undersökningar som anger att den positiva effekten för Trump kan bli liknande den som Sverigedemokraterna upplevt här. Fer röstar på partiet än vad som anges i olika väljarundersökningar. Skamfaktorn är stor även för Trump.

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Politisk kommunikation: Därför vann alltid Tony Blair!

IMAGE | Inom Labour är Tony Blair numera näst intill hatad. Det är lite märkligt med tanke på att han är partiets mest framgångsrika premiärminister.

Han står idag i bjärt kontrast till sina efterföljare på partiledarposten. Vare sig Gordon Brown eller Ed Miliband lyckades leva upp till förväntningarna.

William Hague, tidigare partiledare (1997-2001) för Conservative Party, förklarar i The Telegraph hur det var att ha honom som huvudmotståndare och vad det var som gjorde Blair så framgångsrik.

Det är svårt att se den nyvalde partiledaren Jeremy Corbyn kommer att ta någon notis om Hagues lärdomar.

In late 1997, having rather rashly taken on the job of Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, I discussed with the new prime minister, Tony Blair, which of us had the most difficult job. “You have,” he said, without a moment’s doubt.

Blair was right. And that job was doubly more difficult because it was one pitched every day against him, the most formidable electoral opponent the Conservative Party has faced in its entire history. Before him, Labour had only twice since its foundation won a decisive majority; with him it did so three times in a row.

Although he is despised in Labour’s current leadership election, Blair was a Tory leader’s worst nightmare: appealing to the swing voter and reassuring to the Right-leaning, it was hard to find a square on the political chessboard on which he did not already sit. When people told me I did well at Prime Minister’s Questions, I knew I had to, since I had very little else going for me at all – I had to raise the morale of Conservatives each Wednesday to get them through the frustration and impotence of every other day of the week.

Blair courted business leaders and Right-wing newspapers, often to great effect. He was a Labour leader who loved being thought to be a secret Tory, a pro-European who was fanatical in support for the United States, a big spender who kept income taxes down, an Anglican who let it be known he wanted to be a Catholic and regularly read the Koran. He could be tough or soft or determined or flexible as necessary and shed tears if needed, seemingly at will. To the political law that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time he added Blair’s law – that you can make a very serious attempt at it.

This was the human election-winning machine against which some of us dashed ourselves, making the Charge of the Light Brigade look like a promising manoeuvre by comparison. Yet now, only eight years after he left the scene he dominated, his party’s election is conducted with scorn for the most successful leader they ever had.

Bild: Utrikesminister William Hague och Tony Blair 2010.  Foto från The Office of Tony Blair. 

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Front Page: Narendra Modi och BJP segrar i Indien!

VAL | Bharatiya Janata Party vann överlägset i världens största demokrati. För första gången sedan 1986 fick ett parti mer än hälften av mandaten.

The Telegraph (Calcutta) den 17 maj 2014

Hindustan Times (Jaipur) den 17 maj 2014

Så här skrev Manini Chatterjee i The Telegraph om Modis kampanj:

Although India has a parliamentary system, Modi ran a superbly crafted presidential-style campaign that pushed all the right buttons — it was massively funded by corporate India whose czars were the first to nominate their favourite chief minister as a possible PM candidate; it used every available medium to reach out to every corner of India with the Brand Modi message; it galvanised a whole army of volunteers — distinct from the traditional and formidable RSS-BJP cadre network — to keep up the momentum through the eight-month-long campaign from September 2013 when Modi was named PM candidate till counting day; it focussed on “growth” and “development” but did not shy away from subliminal Hindutva to consolidate its base when required, and it effectively posited the self-made man who came from humble “chaiwala” origins to challenge the politics of entitlement and inheritance epitomised by a “maa-beta sarkar” and its effete “shehzada”.

But all the corporate funding and advertising blitzkrieg could not have delivered without the relentless, indefatigable and unwavering campaign by Narendra Modi himself — who addressed more rallies in person and through 3D holograms than anyone in recent memory, who successfully cast himself in the mould of a macho superhero out to avenge real and imagined enemies and infirmities, and whose singular self-belief and unabashed self-promotion appealed to a new, aspirational India that has little patience with seeming abstractions such as secularism, inclusion and diversity.

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