Just seen the news now. One of the first “proper” books on politics I ever read was In Defense of Politics; and much of what he wrote then is still relevant today. He was also one of Orwell’s better biographers; George Orwell – A Life rightly concentrates on the facts of Orwell’s life and works rather than on (inevitably inaccurate) supposition about his private life.
RIP
The defeat of Dollar Bill, an election in Quebec and, lol, Rod Blagojevich… not sure which will come first though. Hmm…
EDIT: well, it turned out that the answer was “none”. Oh well. Illness = less concentration = takes longer to do things. And having more important things to do than randomly comment on what’s gone on means that…
You can read the story elsewhere, I think. An argument could be made that the Layton-Dion-Duceppe deal was undemocratic; this, however, is actually anti-democratic as well and also runs against the spirit of the constitution.
Not really a surprise or anything.
There’s a small group of counties in the far north of Georgia that I’ve kept half an eye on for a few years now (Rabun, Towns and Union. Would be Fannin as well, but it’s political traditions are (at least in terms of their magnitude) unique*). For those interested, this is the land of Deliverance and Zell Miller (insert joke here).
Presidential:
Rabun: McCain 5,487 (72.2%), Obama 2,001 (26.3%)
Towns: McCain 4,292 (74.8%), Obama 1,391 (24.2%)
Union: McCain 8,013 (75.3%), Obama 2,486 (23.4%)
First round, Senate:
Rabun: Chambliss 4,418 (60.5%), Martin 2,530 (34.7%)
Towns: Chambliss 3,559 (64.8%), Martin 1,689 (30.7%)
Union: Chambliss 6,483 (63.4%), Martin 3,292 (32.2%)
Second round, Senate:
Rabun: Chambliss 3,057 (72.4%), Martin 1,164 (27.6), one precinct (out of 11) not in yet.
Towns: Chambliss 2,560 (73.6%), Martin 918 (26.4), one precinct (out of 6) not in yet.
Union: Chambliss 4,624 (74.9%), Martin 1,547 (25.1%), one precinct (out of 13) not in yet.
In percentage terms, Martin seems to have run a little ahead of Obama but a little behind Majette (!). In 2002, Cleland broke 40% in both Rabun and Towns.
*It’s one of the old Unconditional Unionist areas.
There’s not much point commenting too much on the Senate runoff in Georgia; the overall numbers, while depressing, were basically those that everyone should have been expecting (though whether they were or not is obviously a different matter). But there’s an interesting, ominous even, little detail hidden away there. Back in early November, Martin run about 10pts ahead of Obama in most of the lily-white rural counties in the north of the state (as you’d expect and for, aha, the reasons that you might expect). But in the runoff… Martin’s percentages seem to have been about the same as Obama’s were earlier (to an uncanny degree in places). Most analysis of this race will be concerned with low black turnout. While black turnout patterns had a huge impact on the final result (not that Chambliss was ever going to lose) it’s possible that voting patterns in rural North Georgia will prove to be of greater significance.
It seems that he was. Disgusting. And we wonder why politics and public institutions are so often viewed with contempt (agree with the general sentiments here, fwiw).
Stumbled across this article on the 1969 New York Mayoral election the other day. Fascinating.
