Society

Thursday

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

What’s your view on the Fourth Plinth?  

Come on Londoners – it’s judgement day! Now that the new designs for the Fourth Plinth are on display, I think it’s time for us all to have our shout about Thomas Schutte’s Model for a Hotel – that stack of neon plexiglass, to the north-west of Nelson’s column.  Well – here’s my shout anyway: I think it’s a disgrace. Ken told us it would ‘sparkle through the months of winter and lift Londoners’ spirits’. Cobblers. It sends my spirits creeping right down into my boots. Against anything but a bright blue sky, the acid yellow looks grubby and the poor thing is far, far too small for such a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The next Republican contest

Washington, DC The Michigan primary coming up on Tuesday will determine whether Mitt Romney can remain a credible candidate. If he can’t win in a state where his father was a popular governor, it is curtains for him. By contrast, if McCain can repeat his 2000 triumph here he will establish himself as the Republican frontrunner. The two deciding factors in the Michigan primary are likely to be how many independents and Democrats cross over to vote in the Republican primary and whether the Huckabee-McCain brotherhood holds. The Democratic contest in Michigan is meaningless, only Hillary Clinton is on the ballot, and the more independents and Democrats who play in

Wednesday

The Skimmer

Wrong exit

A set or first editions of today’s newspapers will be a collector’s item. Here are a selection of their stories, usually printed at 9pm, predicting Hillary’s downfall. “Iowa, New Hampshire, America? Obama’s incredible journey” (Independent splash). “Clinton moves to Plan B” (Guardian splash) “Hillary to sack aides as she faces defeat” (Telegraph, p1). “Obama dealt a potentially fatal blow to Hillary Clinton’s chances of being US President yesterday” (intro on The Sun’s p4 lead”, “Hillary Clinton’s hopes of becoming the first female president in US history were crumbling last night” (Daily Mail intro, p10 lead). “The tears are falling but Clinton vows to fight on” (times, p6). Many changed this

James Forsyth James Forsyth

What role did race play in Obama’s loss?

The debate over whether the reluctance of white voters to support a black candidate once in the privacy of the voting booth is what explains Obama’s loss is raging here in New Hampshire. First Read lays out the case, “we can only think of three races in which the public polls and the final result were SO off, and they all involved African-American candidates: Bradley’s ’82 gubernatorial campaign in California, Doug Wilder’s surprisingly narrow ’89 victory for Virginia governor, and Harvey Gantt’s surprise loss for North Carolina Senate. There is no poll question we can find that can truly measure this phenomenon. But African-Americans are thinking this, and the difference

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hillary’s remarkable triumph

Hillary Clinton’s comeback win took everyone, including her own campaign, by surprise. The theories are flowing as to how she pulled it out. Some are claiming it is because people tell pollsters that they’re planning to vote for the black candidate then in the privacy of the ballot box don’t. This is certainly the simplest explanation for what happened but I’m wary of it as it lets people like me who predicted that he’d win big off the hook far too easily. The other theories doing the rounds are that New Hampshire voters didn’t want to end the contest this early. Or, that they reacted against the media narrative.  One definite

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How did we all get this so wrong?

To say that there is shock at tonight’s result would be an understatement. Every poll was predicting an Obama win–the internal numbers of both campaigns had him up by double-digits, his crowds were bigger and more energised and his press coverage was far more favourable. In short, every metric that one could use to try and predict the result favoured Obama.  I’m crashing on a magazine piece right now but I will have some thoughts on this in a bit. In the meantime, Mark Halperin has some initial ideas on why the polls were so very wrong.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

ABC call New Hampshire for Obama

The big question now is the margin. If it is less than five the Clintons will spin a comeback narrative, if it is double digits for Obama then the meltdown storyline will continue. UPDATE: Bad info, sorry. Hillary Clinton pulled off a remarkable comeback victory which I’ll try and explain in a minute.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

<p><strong>McCain wins New Hampshire</strong></p>

This place has just errupted with the news that the networks have called New Hampshire for McCain. Considering how quickly this has been called, McCain must have won by a comfortable margin suggesting that he should have enough momentum to take Michigan. Also worth noting that the Democratic race has yet to be called, implying McCain’s margin is bigger than Obama’s.

Aidan Hartley

When elephants fight, the grass suffers

As I write this, the crackle of gunfire is audible from the veranda of our farmhouse. Warriors of the Pokot and Samburu are fighting a mile away. A bushfire engulfs the horizon. I hear the tally in blood so far is three Samburu warriors killed, and the Pokot have rustled 750 cattle. Today I hope our farm and the people who live here will be spared the violence. They were not on Boxing Day, the eve of Kenya’s elections, when Samburu rustlers armed with AK-47s hit our place and made off with 22 steers. That afternoon the police were unable to respond as they were busy guarding ballot boxes. Our

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Welfare reform is now seen as well fair

I’ve just finished a 45-minute BBC Five Live phone-in with Richard Bacon about Cameron’s welfare reform – me in favour and Lisa Harker from the IPPR (ex DWP) against. I had expected it to be a flak-taking exercise, and perhaps it would have been had it been a Westminster discussion. But most of the callers were very supportive of the Tory proposals. There was a guy who had been on Jobseekers Allowance for months who applauded Cameron’s workfare idea – ie, demand people work for their dole. It makes you feel you’ve earned something, he said. Another text said “I work six nights a week for my family, no one

James Forsyth James Forsyth

This could be a blow out

Extra Democratic ballots are needed in a string of towns, this is great news for Obama—who won in Iowa by bringing new people into the caucuses—and bad for Hillary Clinton. A double-digit loss would be a hammer blow to her campaign and if the margin climbs to around 15 points we would be well into humiliation territory. John McCain’s team must also be a little worried that this suggests that very few independents are voting in the Republican primary. One more sign of Obama’s momentum is that his campaign are having to turn away donors from a fundraiser in New York—the adopted hometown of Hillary Clinton—tomorrow night. The question is how

James Forsyth James Forsyth

If you want to win big, you’ve got to think big

The post-mortems are already beginning on the Clinton campaign as everyone here is expecting a big Obama win tonight; the spin from her side is that if they can keep the margin in single figures then it will be a good night for them. In trying to understand why Hillary’s star has fallen so far so fast, it is worth considering why she was running in the first place, the essential essence of their candidacy is what a politician can return to when things gets tough. But as Chuck Todd, the political director of NBC News, points out, Hillary never really laid out why she was running. Her slogan was

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Hillary supporters rally to her but there’s no sign that she is set to be the new comeback kid

The line of cars trying to get into the Clinton event tonight must have been more than a couple of miles long and her supporters were noisy, clearly determined that if she is to go down here she will do so with dignity. Encouragingly for her campaign, her emotional moment earlier in the day is playing sympathetically and hasn’t been used to declare her political death. This was the first time that I had seen Bill and Hillary at a rally together. He didn’t speak this evening, unlike at her pre-caucus rally in Iowa, but he was a distracting presence. You do find yourself constantly looking to him to see

James Forsyth James Forsyth

McCain and Romney go to the wire in New Hampshire

John McCain and Mitt Romney have both been criss-crossing the Granite state in one last quest for votes. McCain’s Straight Talk Express pulled a decent, but far from spectacular, crowd in Manchester earlier. Mitt Romney filled a school hall in Bedford. There’s a bond between McCain and New Hampshire voters, as one undecided voter (she’s picking between Hillary, Obama and McCain) told me he’s a maverick and this is a maverick state. McCain was in feisty form emphasising his ability to be commander in chief from day one—working in a reference to today’s incident in the Straits of Hormuz into his remarks—and his outsider status in an attempt to deflect

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Did Hillary just alienate black voters?

Hillary Clinton has been trying to raise doubts about Barack Obama by talking about the limits of hope. Obama has counter-punched by pointing out that many of the greatest advances in American history were due to hope and that hope is an essential American quality; one that inspired the Colonists in 1776, the abolitionists and  the civil rights movement among others. The trailblazing nature of his candidacy makes this a particularly effective rejoinder.  Now, Ben Smith is reporting that Hillary said this to Fox News: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act,” Clinton said. “It took a president to get it done.” This

James Forsyth James Forsyth

<strong>The sharks gather</strong>

A whole slew of polls have now confirmed that Obama is surging ahead of Hillary here in New Hampshire. To compound the problem for the  Clinton camp, there is now a full media feeding frenzy. Bill’s comment that “We can’t be a new story, I’m sorry. I can’t make her younger, taller, male” became the story for cable news this morning and now Drudge is claiming that there’s chatter about Hillary getting out of the race. Considering the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Hillary’s voice cracked on the trail this morning. But having just seen the video (available here) I think this moment humanises her more than anything else.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How badly will Rudy do?

Rudy Giuliani’s sixth place finish in Iowa could be shrugged off as he had never really put that much effort into the state and as Iowa with its socially conservative Republican base was never going to be hospitable territory for a thrice-married, socially liberal former New York Mayor. But New Hampshire with its more small government, libertarian-leaning electorate was meant to be much more hospitable territory for him. Indeed, Giuliani made a major play for the state late last year only reducing his emphasis on it when a TV advertising blast failed to move the needle. So it will be much harder for Giuliani to shrug off a poor finish

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Twenty hours in America

 Voting in New Hampshire starts in 21 hours time and unless something dramatic happens between now and then Barack Obama will win big. If he does, the nomination will be his barring a game-changing error from him or some event—say a confrontation between US and Iranian ships in the Straits of Hormuz turning hot—redefining the election. On the Republican side things are tighter. The polls suggest that John McCain should win but by a relatively small margin. After Saturday’s night debate where all the candidates heavily criticised Romney his campaign could have imploded, but a strong Sunday performance in a televised candidate forum has stopped the bleeding. Indeed, there are whispers

James Forsyth James Forsyth

<strong>New polls show Obama with a double digit lead in New Hampshire</strong>

The latest New Hampshire polls suggest that Obama is going to blow Clinton away here. He leads by 13 in the Gallup poll and is 10 ahead in the CNN/WMUR poll. These polls match the mood on the ground where the buzz around the Obama events is the talk of the trail. (The photo gives you a sense of the line at the Obama event I blogged about on Saturday) If the polls are right, one would have to expect Obama to win South Carolina where he was level-pegging even before his Iowa victory. At this point, Hillary would face a choice. She can either gracefully withdraw, return to the Senate