Opinion
lem, that I think he will make his biggest
mistakes.
IPSOS MORI OpINION pOLL
If the United States is to win the
struggle against Islamist terrorism, it Compared to this time last year, would you say your household finds it more
must solve the Palestinian-Israeli issue
or less difficult to afford household bills, or has there been no change?
with a genuine independent state for the
Palestinians. If it does not do so, then
Making ends meet. It’s
Obama’s administration will dash the
hard at the best of times,
3%
2%
hopes of Arabs and other Muslims, and but when energy and food
the reaction will be more recruitment for
prices rise dramatically – at
al-Qaeda and a perpetual ‘war on terror’
the same time – it can be
that the USA cannot win.
nigh on impossible. As this
study shows, lately the vast
To solve the Palestinian-Israeli con-
41% 31%
majority of us have found
flict, the Obama administration has
it more difficult to pay the
to be an honest broker. That means
household bills, with only
deserting the long-held US position of tiny majority saying things
tying its Middle East policy to unlim-
had become easier.
ited, uncritical support of Israel. That
Help may be at hand
means no automatic subsidies to Israel;
though, for those of us
facing down the settler movement;
lucky enough to keep our 41%
facing down the powerful Israeli
jobs anyway. Oil prices
lobby in America; and facing down have fallen by half since
Congress whose members toe the Israeli
their peak of over $140
line as though they were puppets on its
a barrel earlier this year,
string.
and associated inflation is
dropping too. Think of it as
Will that happen? Obama’s Chief
the silver lining on the dark
of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is a Zionist,
economic cloud.
whose father was an Irgun terrorist. The
A lot more Slightly more No change Slightly less A lot less difficult
difficult difficult difficult
message to the Muslim world in that
appointment is that Obama, like other
Base: All parents (1,011)
Presidents before him since 1948, is Isra-
For more information, email Simon Braunholtz at
simon.braunholtz@ipsos.com
el’s man. Somewhere in the mountains
Ipsos MORI Scotland has recently launched Approach – a newsletter presenting
of Afghanistan, or in Pakistan, Osama
news, thoughts and comments on methods in social research. To be included in
bin Laden is smiling.
our email distribution, please email
david.myers@ipsos.com
HM
Chicago election night speech: “It has no such thing as certainty and the idea of taxpayers’ money for the general elec-
been a long time coming, but tonight, absolute and universal truth must be dis- tion. His final total was over $700m.
because of what we did on this day, in this carded. Emphasis should be placed instead Obama built a fund-raising machine
election, at this defining moment, change on discourse, debate and democracy. quite unlike anything seen before in
has come to America...But above all I will A recent article in the New York Times national politics. Large and small donors
never forget who this victory truly belongs
Ob
null
ama
said, “A new generation of voters con- were attracted but the real innovation
to---it belongs to you.” This enthused the suming political information in different was to build up the small donors who
body politic as they were being engaged in
built a
ways from their forebears, is very action- wanted to give money, those who wanted
their own democracy, investing financially
fund-
oriented, very issue-driven and very to raise it and especially from anyone
in their own political future, participating
raising
solutions-driven. It would be very fool- “wired up” to computers, mobile phones
in the process of change and becoming
machine
hardy for either political party to think and PDAs. The key to this was the highly
activists and new voters – especially the
quite unlike
they could dominate the age politically.” competitive ethos and the new boom in
disadvantaged and young people – renew- This seems wise advice for our parties social-networking sites like MySpace and
ing the meaning of democracy.
anything
both north and south of the border. We Facebook which had created vast, inter-
This strategy is made in America
seen before
need to rethink the notion of political connected electronic communities and
but the lessons of this approach make in national dominance. offered the real possibility of linking fund
sense in Scotland and the UK where we
politics
The overwhelming lesson, how- raising, political activism and promoting
are moving from a society structured by ever, from the Obama experience is the the message.
industrialisation and class solidarity to
an increasingly fragmented and pluralis-
tic information society.
null
amazing money machine he has created. These new platforms offered the pos-
Obama has become the most successful sibility of building a new base for a new
presidential fundraiser ever. So much so, political generation. The outcome of
In this process, individuals are trans- after becoming the nominee, he opted all of this was
My.BarackObama.com,
formed into consumers and individualism out of the public financing system, mak- launched at the start of the campaign.
replaces class, religious and ethnic loyal- ing him the first major party candidate The site centred on the candidate and
ties. In this postmodern argument, there is since the system was created to decline was designed to give users a practi- >>
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www.holyrood.com | Holyrood magazine | 17 November 2008 |
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