On sweltering weather and vast wastage of money

[axver]

Well, Melbourne sure has been sweltering this past week. New Year's Eve struck 41 - and was still over 34 at midnight! - followed by 40 on New Year's Day, almost 36 yesterday, and today crept just past the 37 mark. Apparently it's going to be 24 tomorrow though, so make sense of that. For those of you still living in the Dark Ages in the US, 37

Comments

[evilmissbecky]

The process is normally long and drawn out, yes, but this election is even more lengthy. There's been speculation as to why campaigning started so early, but basically it all boils down to the fact that 1) everyone hates Bush and 2) they can't wait to get rid of him. So let's start campaigning now! Huzzah!

Blearrgghhh...

But I will say the news out of Iowa did make me immensely happy. Except for the downright scary part about Huckabee winning. That man creeps me the hell out.

[axver]

Hah! Yeah, I've been amazed at how any Republican who hasn't really distanced themselves from Bush has just sunk like a stone. I really do wonder that if the Dear Shrubbery could run again, would he even gain the nomination? Though I have seen some commentators remark that another factor in the drawn out campaigning is the amounts of money that are increasingly being dumped on this and the need to establish name recognition as far in advance as possible. The latter in particular I can see - certainly someone like Hillary's got that benefit from the start, and Obama did a spectacular job of making people aware of him even in 2006.

Judging by the polling out of other states and the fact McCain and Giuliani effectively sat out Iowa, I think Huckabee's win is fairly meaningless. Thank goodness. I feel he significantly lacks depth - it's just religion, religion, religion, "I'm one of you, not them" sort of stuff. But credit where credit's due: he's probably the best orator out of the Republican candidates.

[palinurus]

Actually, generally over half of people eligible to vote do so in the real election, which works out to about 75% of the registered voters. In non-presidential elections, turnout is lower, but still way more than 15%, I believe.

[axver]

Sorry, did I not make that tremendously clear? I meant turnout with regards to the primaries only. I know that only roughly 15% of people who could have turned up to the Iowa caucuses actually did, and I've seen numerous remarks about similarly appalling attendance in other states' primaries and how particularly Obama crucially seems to be motivating attendance from people who ordinarily would not go.

As for the general election, wasn't turnout last time 60%? I remember people were fairly impressed with how many people actually voted, though I also saw some comparisons with other countries without compulsory voting that were less than flattering (New Zealand does a nice job of getting over 80%, we've even got 93% once, but that's from a pool of probably only about 2-2.5 million eligible voters so make of that what you will).

[palinurus]

Oh, I see what you mean; sorry, that should have been fairly clear. As for Iowa turnout, I believe it is actually much lower than that, it's usually like 5% or something ridiculous. I didn't really follow the election campaigning before now, but I've heard that it was substantially better this year (particularly the Dem turnout), so maybe it was 15%. I dunno. However, the reason for the low turnout is that, as you are probably aware, the Iowa caucus system means that it takes about six hours to go vote. And it's very, very easy to rationalize not voting even when it takes five minutes. I sure as hell wouldn't bother going to the primaries if it took hours out of an evening.

[palinurus]

That is, I didn't follow this year's cycle until now.

[augustine]

I live in a part of the world where the date of the election is not even announced until six weeks beforehand, and thus the formal campaigning is rather limited in duration.

If only that would be the case here....

[axver]

Hey, you shouldn't have left the Commonwealth. ;)

[augustine]

Perhaps you're right. :-)

[axver]

If you were still in the Commonwealth, you could compete at the Commonwealth Games and just totally blitz the medal tally!

[purplicious]

I also liked the results of the Iowa caucus. This was also the first time I'd found out much about how caucusing works, and I've decided I want to, at some point in my life, participate in a democratic caucus. It sounds fun, like a game :)

[axver]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I got the impression that Iowa is unique in that it has a caucus (which, for the record, is different to what we mean down here by a party caucus!) as opposed to a primary. Have you looked into TN stuff for this year?

[ladyphoenixia]

Hi there. Having looked through your past entries, you seem an interesting person who shares a lot of my ideas. Plus, it's always nice to meet another Kiwi-turned-Aussie. Mind if I friend?

[axver]

Hi, nice to meet you! It's always nice to make new friends, so certainly, consider yourself friended in return. :)

As a matter of interest, which part of New Zealand are you from? I'm from the Kapiti Coast, with rather extensive ties to Central Otago and the Wairarapa.

[ladyphoenixia]

Born in Hamilton, and most of my extended family still live in Waikato, but I grew up in a little town in Taranaki. Sadly enough, I've never actually been to the South Island, bar a short visit when I was about six months old. Must remedy this one day.

[axver]

I've never actually been to the Waikato or Taranaki myself, excluding a brief visit to Hawera when I was little (why the hell we went to Hawera, I don't know), and back in the days when Freedom Air flew Palmerston North --> Hamilton --> Brisbane, I passed through Hamilton airport a few times. Despite being a North Islander, I have seen far more of the South Island. That said, my Nan is one of eleven, so there's stacks of relatives to visit down there.

You must go to the South Island; the area encompassed by southern West Coast and western Central Otago is my favourite in the entire world. Wanaka, Lake Matheson, Fox Glacier, Haast Pass ... nothing short of stunning.