Why is Washington Post so reluctant to ask hard questions about Hillary Clinton that could well have been raised about her H.S. govt. aspirations -by even her friends- that are still dogging her now? Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1998 analysis of Hillary remains my go-to bible!

Why is Washington Post so reluctant to ask hard questions about Hillary Clinton that could well have been raised about her H.S. govt. aspirations -by even her friends- that are still dogging her now? Elizabeth Wurtzel's 1998 analysis of Hillary remains my go-to bible!

I wrote about Hillary the teenager. https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

The Washington Post

Always running, always prepared: Hillary Clinton as a high school politician 

By Dan Zak 

October 17 at 11:54 AM 

PARK RIDGE, Ill. — Hillary Rodham was 16 when she first ran for president.

It was February 1964, her junior year of high school in this town of steeples and lawns on the rail line to Chicago. She was vice president of her class, and one of five students running to lead the student council for the next academic year. Student rock bands played in support of candidates in the hallways and cafeteria of Maine East High School.

“Stop mudslinging before it starts,” the school newspaper opined. “Keep this election clean!”

No girl had ever held the job before. “The boys would run for president, and the most popular girl would run for secretary,” says classmate Tim Sheldon, who was one of Hillary’s rivals and is now a retired judge in Elgin, Ill. Years later, in her memoir, Hillary recalled a boy telling her she was “really stupid” if she thought a girl could win.

But it was 1964, and she wasn’t even the only girl in the race.

Read the rest of the article at:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hillary-clinton-high-school-years-always-running-always-prepared/2016/10/17/35dd9e4a-8c08-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html

These are probably my two favorite Hillary anecdotes from 1964. https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI pic.twitter.com/lYI9apCXGl

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Fave detail that didn't make the story: The theme of Hillary's prom, at the Sheraton O'Hare, was "Medieval Mist." https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Hillary wrote about being called "stupid" 4 running 4 h.s. prez. One of her rivals was female, tho, & I called her: https://t.co/y7vw6cXMNI

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Here is that mock interview with future Hillary in her high-school newspaper in 1965. Author unknown. Forensic sketch not bad! pic.twitter.com/5kIRKj0ODM

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

Here's that very grown-up, narc-y quote from 17-yr-old Hillary, re: vandalism. Also, her co-chair was a Calif. delegate at the DNC in July! pic.twitter.com/r0pRahg1mC

— Dan Zak (@MrDanZak) October 17, 2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/hillary-clinton-high-school-years-always-running-always-prepared/2016/10/17/35dd9e4a-8c08-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html

The logical counter-point to this kind of gauzy and whimsical reporting-by-yearbook or scrapbook that the washington post has specialized in its Style section the last few decades is how real and modern -and menacing!- the Tracey Flick character portrayed by Reese Witherspoon was in the film adaption of "Election." 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracy_Flick

That character didn't just plot and scheme, she practically leaped out of the screen, oozing sanctimonious personal ambition and a sense of entitlement!

Even after all this time and all the self-evident examples both good and bad of who Hillary Clinton really is and what she believes in, the Washington Post, rather curiously in these types of breezy profile pieces that regular Post readers like me have come to expect at predictable times in an election news cycle, still seems reluctant to ask a hard-but-fair question about her and the premise of her current candidacy: 
Why are the logical questions that could have well been fairly raised about Hillary's candidacy in High School, by even her friends and supporters -her lack of charisma, authenticity and a consistent inability to make even people who plan to vote for her feel comfortable with her, and around her- still dogging her now?

Especially since it's been clear for so long that she intended to run?

Why, given her unique and unchallenged access to the sorts of resources and people that nobody else in the country can match, has she NOT done enough to actually change that dynamic, even a little bit, except for occasionally changing her political consultants? 

It's a mystery.

In the opinion of not only myself but many other people I know and respect who have a much-closer observation point, she actually seems to have regressed, and is doing retail politics even more poorly now than when she ran for re-election to the U.S. Senate in 2006, in what was her second personal campaign.

That answer is surely not contained in any of her own books, nor in this article.

It might be time for me to again re-read the amazing 1998 book by Elizabeth Wurtzel,

Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, a book, below, which I believe has the single best analysis and dissection of Hillary Clinton and her persona that I've ever read.

Certainly light years ahead of the conveyor-belt of sycophantic utterings about Hillary from media pals and protectors that have circulated in the news stream for the past twenty years, leaving younger voters grasping for something that's real and meaningful.

I actually attended Elizabeth Wurtzel's book reading/discussion of Bitch on June 27, 1998 at the then-extant Olsson's Books at Metro Center, in Washington, D.C.

I arrived at the event early because I was very motivated and knew in advance: 

a.) It would be fascinating because Wurtzel was so damn interesting herself, and articulate and intelligent that very few Beltway media types ever actually area once you get to know them. (I speak from experience on that.) Wurtzel always seemed to be speaking in full and convincing phrases in interviews in ways that seemed intoxicating to me, almost like she was reading well-rehearsed lines filled with bite, but which comes natural to some people who are very sure of themselves and the facts.

b.) Even by DC's usual literary standards, I knew it was sure to be packed because of the large amount of buzz and controversy about her and the book that had preceded her, and no doubt as well by her publisher for choosing to use a fetching photo of her -the cover?- to promote the event in the DC CityPaper.

Trust me, I was not alone in thinking even before she ever walked into the room that Elizabeth Wurtzel had ample intelligence, good looks and breezy, knowing attitude to spare and to slay any dragons that dared appear at the bookstore. I was not wrong.

I can assure you, once she was introduced and began filling the air with clever and inventive analysis and some occasional zingers, she positively sizzled in every way.

There were many more men in that bookstore personally energized and turned-on by her and what she was saying than you can possibly imagine now in reading my words here.

For myself, I kept thinking that Wurtzel, someone who clearly was using to people projecting onto them all sorts of their own imagery (or baggage) was more like a contemporary version of a combination of Lauren Bacall in her first film, 1944's To Have and Have Not, below, plus Katharine Hepburn in the 1942 film, Woman of the Year. 

Pretty good company!

Lauren Bacall on cover of LIFE, October 16, 1944: "New Movie Find." Part of promo campaign 4 "To Have And Have Not' pic.twitter.com/Dcnnb9TUnG

— HallandaleBeachBlog (@hbbtruth) August 13, 2014

Karen Lehrman's April 19, 1998 review of Bitch in the New York Times:

I Am Woman, Hear Me Whine 
Elizabeth Wurtzel celebrates women who are a pain in the neck.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/04/19/reviews/980419.19lehrmat.html

Twitter @LizzieWurtzel https://twitter.com/LizzieWurtzel

I'll re-read Elizabeth Wurtzel's chapter on Hillary Clinton and report back here soon!

But to give you a taste, watch Elizabeth Wurtzel discuss her book on C-SPAN on June 27, 1998 https://www.c-span.org/video/?105509-1/bitch-praise-difficult-women

A gentle reminder for you newcomers to the blog or any by-now-angry Hillary acolytes: I was a vocal supporter of Bill Clinton for President in 1991, long BEFORE he ever announced for the presidency. As my friends and family can tell you, I even planned on running as Clinton delegate to the 1992 DNC before the Virginia Democratic Party HQ down in Richmond even knew what it was doing, so could only tell me to "hold tight" until I heard back from them when I asked what the procedures were.

I was also a member of the DLC when I was living and working in Washington, even to the point of often hauling soda and various snacks around Capitol Hill for our occasional meetings from Oklahoma Congressman Dave McCurdy's office when he was in charge.

And did I mention that my best friend is from Hope, Arkansas, birthplace as well of... well, you know who.

Just saying...

Dave 

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies

http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Peggy Noonan thinks dithering & detached "O" has now become "creepy. "Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest." She's right, of course.

Audiobook: What I Saw At the Revolution -A Political Life in the Reagan Era by Peggy Noonan. http://youtu.be/nDvF7SispPU

Peggy Noonan thinks dithering & detached "O" has now become "creepy. "Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest." She's right, of course.

In this installment from the audio version of the book I bought the first day it was available in 1990 at The Trover Book Shop on Capitol Hill, where I spent hundreds of hours over the years, Peggy Noonan recounts the end of an era of innocence in the days before the 1960 Presidential election on Massapequa , Long Island.Noonan shoots and she scores with: "[Obama's] hermetically sealed inner circle, which operates with what seems an almost entirely abstract sense of America."


From personal experience I can tell you that when you are seated just a few feet away from her and she starts talking about these sorts of cultural issues in that lilting voice of hers, it's positively mesmerizing.

After reading/listening to her impart a little bit of what she saw and remembers that Fall of 1960 about what America was about, you know exactly why her criticism of Obama and his myopic cronies rings so true and causes so many heads to nod in agreement, which is precisely why I placed the audio here for you to listen to yourself. 
The proof is in the pudding.

And even the Europeans have finally come to see him for what he is, esp. the Poles.
Unreliable.


American Crossroads: Operation Hot Mic
http://youtu.be/-Czo5Vf8KZs


Wall Street Journal
Declarations
Not-So-Smooth Operator
Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest.
By Peggy Noonan
Updated March 30, 2012, 6:35 p.m. ET,

Something's happening to President Obama's relationship with those who are inclined not to like his policies. They are now inclined not to like him. His supporters would say, "Nothing new there," but actually I think there is. I'm referring to the broad, stable, nonradical, non-birther right. Among them the level of dislike for the president has ratcheted up sharply the past few months.

It's not due to the election, and it's not because the Republican candidates are so compelling and making such brilliant cases against him. That, actually, isn't happening.

Readers comments at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312043447691520.html#articleTabs%3Dcomments
-----
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/168909-1 
C-SPAN: In Depth with Peggy Noonan. March 3, 2002. Three hours.
When this first aired, I made videocopies of it for friends overseas.

Archive of Noonan's WSJ columns at:
http://online.wsj.com/search/aggregate.html?article-doc-type={Declarations}

http://online.wsj.com/public/page/peggy-noonan.html

http://peggynoonan.com/ Read the rest of the column at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303816504577312043447691520.html

"Extent of radicalization among American Muslims" hearing; Rassmussen: 39% Say U.S. Govt. Not Focusing Enough on Threat of Domestic Islamic Terrorism

If, like me, you don't get C-SPAN 3 as part of your cable or satellite package, you can watch the House Homeland Security Comm. congressional hearing titled "Extent of radicalization among American Muslims" that I wrote about yesterday at:
http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

The entire four-and-a-half hour meeting will be re-run again this afternoon on C-SPAN 3, and will also be shown in its entirety on C-SPAN starting at 10 p.m. tonight.

If you want to see a tone-deaf article that completely mis-characterizes both the purpose of the hearing and the reason why it's long-overdue, I've got just the article for you, and trust me, the confusion is neither accidental nor is it due to language or translation problems.

That's my way of saying to those of you who have wondered from time-to-time, via emails, why I mention so many things here that are related to either Swedish or Scandinavian sources -short answer: because I can and they're interesting- that I'm not going to give you a link here to something that's all in svenska.
I'm really not.

No, the offending article that stands common sense on its head is one that is easily found on one of the world's most popular media sites, The Telegraph, which I have been reading in print or online, for more than thirty years.

That dates back to my days at IU in Bloomington when I had one of the most distinguished professors of comparative politics and British politics in the country as a teacher and sounding board, the late James B. Christoph.
http://www.grad.ubc.ca/awards/james-b-christoph-prize

I took every undergraduate class on British politics that he taught and was fortunate enough to be among several British Politics students asked to attend an annual barbecue he hosted at his home for folks who were really, really into the subject.

He was a great professor who knew his subject inside-and-out and inspired his students to think more clearly and wisely for themselves.
What else can you ask for?

Prof. Christoph's wisdom, keen insight and thoughtful comments on the interplay between politics, human behavior and cultural tradition, and why some systems work and others don't, during what were then the early days of the Margaret Thatcher administration, still ring in my ears.

What also rings in my ears are the names of the myriad books and the newspapers he both required -and strongly recommended- we read, even if we might disagree with them politically, to get the true nuance and context.
Obviously, for both reasons of history and the quality of its writing, The Telegraph was on that list.
That was enough for me.

A few years ago, once I started this blog, I even ran some of their widgets on this site in order to give them the widest possible circulation, but they had technical problems too often so I had to remove them.

Early this morning, I left a comment at The Telegraph relative to the Alex Spillius column titled, US hearing on radical Islam: a waste of time, but not witch hunt http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexspillius/100079257/us-hearing-on-radical-islam-a-waste-of-time-but-not-witch-hunt/

Spillius definitely seems like he could pass that rigorous employment process at NPR and start work tomorrow. And yes, you know exactly what I mean when I say that.

Today's Rassmussen Reports has a poll detailing results of how Americans feel about some of the issues mentioned in today's hearing:

39% Say Government Not Focusing Enough on Threat of Domestic Islamic Terrorism
Thursday, March 10, 2011

A House committee is expected to begin controversial hearings today about the potential danger of domestic Islamic terrorism, and a sizable number of voters think the government is not paying enough attention to this possible threat. Most voters still worry, too, about homegrown terrorist attacks.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the federal government does not focus enough on the potential threat from domestic Islamic terrorism, although nearly as many (38%) say the government’s anti-terrorism focus is about right.

Read the rest of the report at: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/march_2011/39_say_government_not_focusing_enough_on_threat_of_domestic_islamic_terrorism

For more information, see: www.homeland.house.gov

Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, its President and Founder, had many good common sense points to make, esp. between 1 and 1:30 p.m., the last hour of the meeting, and I encourage you to go to their website and learn more about their efforts.

Their goal: "taking back Islam from the demagoguery of the Islamo-fascists."
http://www.aifdemocracy.org/

If you watch the NFL Pro Bowl on Saturday from Iowa, look for this TV ad by students imploring Hoosier governor Mitch Daniels to run for President

My Man Mitch [HD]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-TPHzH-gHA

No need to worry, Chris Good of The Atlantic Online is on the case.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/01/mitch-daniels-is-the-man-in-this-girls-life/70366/


CBS News Early Show segment on Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, April 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFlc4W1bL6Y

See this opinion piece from the FoxNews Channel's website:
Mitch Daniels for President In 2012
By Liz Peek
Published January 13, 2011
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/01/13/mitch-daniels-president/


Fox Business News - Should Capitol Hill Listen to Indiana? Jan 3, 2011 - 7:30 - Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels on his success in reviving the state's economy and abilities to curb union power.
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4483750/should-capitol-hill-listen-to-indiana/


C-SPAN founder and Purdue grad Brian Lamb interviews Mitch Daniels for Q&A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNy7Dz_1OzI

Draft Mitch Daniels for President 2012 YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/draftdaniels

Website: Students for Daniels
http://www.studentsfordaniels.com/


http://www.in.gov/gov/


Governor Mitch Daniels YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/INGovernor

-------
Later in the day... it turns out that if you can see this TV ad in Iowa on Saturday-or anywhere else for that matter- you have latent superpowers, because the Pro Bowl, whcih I haven't watched on TV since the early 1990's, is actually on SUNDAY!
Mea culpa.

Miami Book Fair International: LIVE Coverage on C-SPAN 2 on Saturday and Sunday

Miami Book Fair International: LIVE Coverage on C-SPAN 2 on Saturday and Sunday

Sat. Noon - 6:30 pm ET (Re-airs at Midnight) Book TV will have LIVE coverage of the Miami Book Fair International over the November 20 - 21 weekend. Authors we'll be covering on Saturday include Sebastian Junger, Karl Marlantes, Edwidge Danticat, Carlos Eire, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, and Salman Rushdie.
Book TV will also be doing call-in segments with several authors attending the fair.

Sun. 10:30 am - 6:30 pm ET (Reairs at 12:30 am) Authors we'll be covering on Sunday include Ron Chernow, Simon Winchester, Meghan McCain, John Avlon, Bill Press, Douglas Schoen, and Jonathan Franzen. Book TV will also be doing viewer call-in segments with several authors attending the fair.

Visit booktv.org for a complete schedule.

C-SPAN to air Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' Rally LIVE on Saturday morning on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial from 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

C-SPAN to air Glenn Beck's 'Restoring Honor' Rally LIVE on Saturday morning on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial from 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

Beck will be joined by Sarah Palin, Jo Dee Messina, Alveda King (niece of Martin Luther King, Jr.) and many more in a non-political event paying tribute to America's service personnel and other citizens who embody the spirit of our nation's founding principles. Net proceeds raised by the event will benefit the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a nonprofit charitable organization that provides scholarship grants and educational and family counseling to the children of special operations personnel who lose their lives and immediate financial assistance to severely wounded special operations personnel and their families.


Washington Post
Beck rally will be a measure of 'tea party' strength
Beck's decision to speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech leads to criticism by social activists and civil rights leaders.
By Amy Gardner Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 26, 2010

When Fox News and talk radio host Glenn Beck comes to Washington this weekend to headline a rally intended to "restore honor" to America, he will test the strength - and potentially expose the weaknesses - of a conservative grass-roots movement that remains an unpredictable force in the country's politics.

Beck, who is both admired and assailed for his faith-based patriotism and his brash criticism of President Obama, plans in part to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. as an American hero.

He will speak on the anniversary of the "I Have a Dream" speech, from the spot where King delivered it

Read the rest of the article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/25/AR2010082507203.html

I am by no means the first person to say this, but however large or small the attendance at a three-hour rally in sweltering Washington at the end of August is, will neither prove nor disproves how fundamentally strong the Tea Party is in its various incarnations in all 50 states.

Very strong in some regions of the U.S. for reasons both geographic and cultural, while only so-so in other places where strong party politics are a foreign concept because political independence was already prized long before there was a Tea Party Movement -like Maine.
That's why we have elections, instead of political rallies at football stadiums.

And yet the MSM just can't accept this explanation.
They keep wanting this event on Saturday to stand for something else, something many of them clearly don't personally like -as if that wasn't noticeable at all in all of the media coverage.

It's a rally for people with some common goals and desires to come together and get enthused about the hard work that lays ahead.
That's it.

I especially encourage my friends overseas to watch for yourself and see how the U.S. media's depiction of this has, again, been much less than truthful. To see the live stream of the rally on Saturday, go to http://newsforamericans.blogspot.com/2010/08/glenn-beck-restoring-honor-rally-stream.html


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMGpBCllHWs



Since I've never mentioned it here before, I listen every day to Glenn Beck's daily morning nationally-syndicated radio show and religiously watch or tape his weekday 5 p.m TV show on Fox News Channel -or the encore broadcast at 2 a.m.- just about every day, having given NPR the boot in the morning quite some time ago as I've previously commented here, since if Diane Rehm has a guest or topic I'm interested in, I know that I can always go to the website and listen to it again over the weekend.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/44014/

But just like Rush Limbaugh's nationally-syndicated afternoon radio show, if you don't listen to Beck's show when it's on, you completely lose the immediacy of what's on his mind and his listeners across the country.

To imagine, as some do, that these two men don't really have a great influence on what the MSM deigns to discuss on other TV chat programs or what will appear in elite newspapers or news magazines, is to harbor a delusion of America that's simply at odds with reality. Nobody 'accidentally' listens to the show every day.

Speaking of numbers and their portent, it's a good thing for Katie Couric that eyeballs alone don't tell the tale of someone's fundamental fitness the way the WaPo seems to want to judge this weekend's rally, or else she'd be out on her butt after CBS Evening News just received it's lowest weekly ratings EVER.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/08/25/katie-couric-and-rush-ratings

If her name wasn't Katie Couric, she's already have been shown the door, like Campbell Brown at CNN.

Not that you would know any of that if you depended on the Miami Herald to make sense of the current media world, as her stewardship there at CBS is never mentioned.

If there's a major newspaper in the country that's more unsophisticated and behind-the-ball than the Herald in its coverage of media in its various guises, considering the people who live here, I don't what paper that could be.
It's truly abysmal with a capital "A."

See also:
Brian Williams: Katie Couric 'Always Welcome' at NBC
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/generalities/brian_williams_katie_couric_always_welcome_at_nbc_171045.asp

See details on Saturday's rally at: http://www.glennbeck.com/828/

See the Washington Post's online chat with Brendan Steinhauser, Director, Federal and State Campaigns, FreedomWorks, from yesterday at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2010/08/26/DI2010082603846.html

http://www.glennbeck.com/extreme/

David is STILL a great name for a British Prime Minister. Make it a reality today.

Forty-six million eligible to vote today from 7 a.m. -10 p.m. with first results expected around Midnight.
Until the polls close, British radio is only allowed to speak about the election in terms of turnout and what the weather is like in any particular constituency.
No silly media voter polls outside the real polls, perhaps the single worst predictor of anything, as John Kerry supporters foolishly assumed they'd won in 2004 because they led in those polls.

Surprise, George W. Bush voters had no compelling interest in talking to pollsters on their way out of the building so those results were skewed while the real ones were not.

As I write this, I'm listening to BBC Radio 1's The Chris Moyles Show and they're talking about what they're allowed to say and do on-air today and what they'll do after they leave the studio, with one of the crew saying that he's going to go home, wake up at 11 p.m., turn on the TV and eat a pizza that he ordered yesterday.

They seem genuinely surprised that you can pre-order a pizza and a fabulous reference was made to that great scene in Back to the Future where Marty McFly gets a FedEx delivery out in the middle of nowhere sent by Doc Brown years before.

C-SPAN's election "coverage will include a simulcast of the BBC Election Results starting at 4:55pm ET on C‑SPAN3, comprehensive analysis of the returns from key constituencies, and interviews with leading politicians."
See more at: http://www.c-span.org/Series/Prime-Minister-Questions.aspx

Earlier, you at 7 p.m. you can watch the one-hour BBC World News America newscast on BBC America.
----------

A country is at its best when the bonds between people are strong and when the sense of national purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing Britain are immense. Our economy is overwhelmed by debt, our social fabric is frayed and our political system has betrayed the people. But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together.

If we remember that we are all in this together. Some politicians say: ‘give us your vote and we will sort out all your problems’. We say: real change comes not from government alone. Real change comes when the people are inspired and mobilised, when millions of us are fired up to play a part in the nation’s future.

Yes this is ambitious. Yes it is optimistic. But in the end all the Acts of Parliament, all the new measures, all the new policy initiatives, are just politicians’ words without you and your involvement.

How will we deal with the debt crisis unless we understand that we are all in this together? How will we raise responsible children unless every adult plays their part? How will we revitalise communities unless people stop asking ‘who will fix this?’ and start asking ‘what can I do?’ Britain will change for the better when we all elect to take part, to take responsibility – if we all come together. Collective strength will overpower our problems.

Only together can we can get rid of this government and, eventually, its debt. Only together can we get the economy moving. Only together can we protect the NHS. Improve our schools. Mend our broken society. Together we can even make politics and politicians work better. And if we can do that, we can do anything.

Yes, together we can do anything. So my invitation today is this: join us, to form a new kind of government for Britain.

David Cameron: The Big Society

Community Relations

Getting Britain working; strengthening families; reforming schools; controlling immigration; tackling racism and challenging extremism all will play a part in uniting our divided society.

A Conservative Government will end the politics of us and them and put integration at the heart of our policies.

Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action

http://blog.conservatives.com/index.php/2010/05/05/one-day-to-change-our-country/

http://www.conservatives.com/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4rS26Bbz2o


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwywQTJZDZk

The Conservative Manifesto 2010:
http://media.conservatives.s3.amazonaws.com/manifesto/cpmanifesto2010_lowres.pdf

----------
Times of London

May 1, 2010

Vote of Confidence

The Conservatives offer an optimistic vision for the renewal of Britain. The electorate has made a call for change and they deserve the chance to answer it

The Times has not endorsed the Conservative Party at a general election for 18 years. For far too much of that time, the Conservative Party turned inward and vacated the ground on which British electoral victory is won — a commitment to the prosperity and liberty fostered in a free-market economy and a sense of justice in an open and tolerant society. Tony Blair’s Labour Party took up the promise of modernity, through its commitment to enterprise and the courage to stand tall in the world. Sadly, over the past 13 years that promise has faded. We all know that Britain can do better: it is surely time to regain our optimism.

This election offers a fundamental choice about the future of this country. It offers a moment to put old-fashioned tribal loyalties, class prejudices and social habits aside. We must choose. Either we are to be a country that has lost confidence in the ingenuity and potential of its people, and concludes that the State must continue to grow to protect us from ourselves. Or we can be a country that cares for the needy but reins in the ever-growing appetite of government and frees up people to grow their businesses, nurture their families and pursue their own hopes and happiness.

At an acutely difficult moment in our history, The Times puts its faith in the people rather than the government. It chooses a strong society, more enterprise and a smaller State. It chooses real, radical change. It chooses renewal.

Perhaps the best advertisement of the Labour years can be glimpsed in a scene outside Belfast City Hall on a clear day in December 2005. There, to the backdrop of cheers and pleasure rather than the sound of guns, in a city whose industrial decline had been replaced by the prosperity that has come with modern technology, the first civil partnership was signed. Not everything that was promised and hoped in the roseate glow of 1997 came to pass but one would have to be hard of heart to say that Belfast — like Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds — is not a better place today than it was 13 years ago. Under Tony Blair, Britain also had a formidable presence on the world stage under a Prime Minister who backed the EU’s embrace of countries from the former Soviet bloc while also recognising the importance of the transatlantic alliance. In Kosovo, in Sierra Leone and in Afghanistan, Britain’s military capacity was mobilised in defence of a noble principle. The same applies to the Government’s decision to go to war in Iraq in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. And the Government also merits praise for its handling of the banking crisis, which, for an alarming moment in 2007, looked like it might threaten capitalism itself. Those who supported Labour — including this newspaper — can look back with some satisfaction.

But the costs have been too high. A Chancellor who had proclaimed an end to boom and bust embarked on a spending spree of remarkable improvidence. Public sector staff now earn £2,000 a year more on average than their private sector counterparts. Spending rose, over the Labour years, by an extraordinary 54 per cent. Productivity lagged behind. Gordon Brown savaged the private pensions industry and sold off the bulk of Britain’s gold reserves much too cheaply. In short, Labour squandered the boom. Even excluding the cost of the bank bailout, which was necessitated by the global credit crunch, Britain is now borrowing £163 billion a year. Mr Brown’s pitch at this election is that voters should not risk the recovery by backing the Conservatives. He does not seem to realise that the greatest threat is more of the same. Yes, the economy is in peril. Mr Brown is the danger.

Britain has also paid a high price in terms of trust in politics. What began as a professional spin operation in Downing Street became a machinery of deceit. Anonymous briefings by figures such as Damian McBride and Tom Watson, part of the cabal around Gordon Brown, dripped poison about opponents both inside the Labour Party and outside. The public stopped believing in official statistics as the Budget became plagued with double-counting, and the real cost of new schools and hospitals was kept off balance sheet. The 10p starting rate of tax was abolished purely to score a political point. The nadir of this style of politics was Mr Brown’s refusal to fund the mission in Afghanistan properly and his repeated denials that he had done so, culminating in a false claim before the Chilcot inquiry that defence spending had risen every year. After ten years in which he was found wanting in the top job, for the past three he has just been found wanting.

This campaign has been electrified by the rise of Nick Clegg. He seized the first television debate and became the overnight sensation of British politics. It was always likely that the electorate’s anger over greedy MPs and their sense of expenses entitlement would affect this election. But what a gloriously British revolution it turned out to be. Anger and dismay go on the march, and the Liberal Democrats do a bit better.

But the Liberal Democrat prospectus for power still reads like that of a party that has no expectation of victory. There is still something soft-headed about its pitch. Mr Clegg’s approach to the euro has in the past been misguided, but these days it is just muddled: he was for entering; now he is against entry; and he wants to leave open the possibility of entry in the future. He is prone to bouts of rank anti-business populism. Was it really necessary to weigh into the Kraft-Cadbury bid — to play the Whole Nut card — in the TV debate on the economy? Surely he cannot think all bankers are greedy? Worse, Mr Clegg’s approach to the biggest economic problem of the day, the deficit, is to duck it: he wants to hold a meeting. Abandoning the Trident nuclear missile system would be a mistake, parading fanciful figures for the cost savings is an error. Breaking up the banks would be counter-productive: the investment banks would become far more dangerous. If Mr Clegg understands this he is not admitting it. Mr Clegg has built a platform that might allow him to go back to his constituency and prepare to be the Opposition. He has yet, however, to build a serious platform to prepare for government.

That is something that David Cameron has been able to do. Today’s Conservative Party is a very different party to that which went to the country in 2005. Mr Cameron has led that change. It is now clear that the modern Conservative Party believes in the importance of reducing the burden on enterprise and entrepreneurship. Its priorities on education, social policy and the environment are those of a modern, innovative force in politics. Its young leadership has the energy, intelligence and integrity to govern.

More modernisation still would be welcome. The party’s desire to maintain the aid budget is a victory for political branding over good sense. Its policies on the National Health Service put a tactical desire to neutralise Labour attacks before the need for radical reform. The Conservatives also retain a worrying streak of pessimism about foreign policy. Mr Cameron’s decision to remove Conservative MEPs from an alliance with mainstream centre-right parties in the EU may have seemed principled to him, but it was also short-sighted. Britain must not shelter behind foreign policy realism to retreat to a Little Englander role in the world.

In 2005 the Conservatives put an illiberal approach to immigration at the centre of their campaign. In 2010 the voters have demanded that immigration be central and the Conservative response has been measured and intelligent. Mr Cameron has made his party think again about the condition of the nation. His bold vision of a “Big Society” — that there is such a thing as society, but it is not necessarily the State — is powerful. The idea that competition will raise standards in public services, using the State as a catalyst, is the right idea for the 21st century. It is the point where new Labour left off. Mr Cameron’s social liberalism has brought a more diverse set of candidates into his party. He has acted ruthlessly against racism and against MPs who abused their expenses.

None of this has been easy. It has been bought at the cost of some unpopularity with his backbenchers. All the more reason that Mr Cameron, and his chief lieutenants George Osborne, William Hague and Michael Gove, should be commended for their decisiveness and determination. These are qualities that this country now needs.

The central question of this general election is the economic future of the nation. The Conservative Party has shown the most consistent willingness to deal with the atrocious State of the public finances that this Government will bequeath. Under fire from Mr Brown, they have held to this unpopular line. Amid the sound and fury, a fundamental philosophical difference has emerged: the Conservatives want to reduce excessive public expenditure, the Labour Party wants to keep on ratcheting up benefits, tax credits and other forms of state spending. One party recognises the benefits of individual independence. The other keeps fostering a state of benefit dependency. In the race for growth with India, China and other rising countries, the Conservatives know that Britain’s entrepreneurial spirit needs to be unleashed.

The economy is broken and so is politics. It is time for a change, in both the philosophy and the style of government. It is time for us to believe in the power of the individual, the strength of society and the unique promise of this country. Labour is tired, defensive and ruinously reliant on higher government spending. David Cameron has shown the fortitude, judgment and character to lead this country back to a healthier, stronger future. It is time, once again, to vote Conservative.

Times 2010 election homepage: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/

Also, see this great story on CitizensUK:

The Citizens and the Candidates http://sites.google.com/site/mkdeanery/area-dean-2/area-dean-1/thecitizensandthecandidates

David is a great name for a British Prime Minister!; Repeat of U.K. debate on C-SPAN at 9 p.m. Sunday

David is a great name for a British Prime Minister!
“We can’t go on like this.”

Above, David Cameron's Year for Change campaign poster,
January 2010.
See the May 2009 video about his series of in-person town hall
meetings -called Cameron Direct- which he held over the
past year at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/?bcpid=4464161001&bctid=22302847001
See also: http://www.conservatives.com/

David Cameron: The Big Society

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2uVYgAuO_c

-----

I watched the 90-minute British election debates in Bristol
on Sky News via Fox News Channel at 3 a.m. Friday
morning and due to lack of sleep,felt like I have a bad case
of jet-lag all day.

The debate will be repeated Sunday night on C-SPAN at
9 p.m. and I strongly urge you to watch it as it was everything
a genuine debate ought to be, which is to say, that some real
insight on public policy ended up being expressed, often in
very articulate ways, despite their campaign's best efforts
to have them talk in a fashion that we might better describe
as, well, American sound-bites-PLUS.

More than what we get here, but less-than-scholarly
banter.

I like David Cameron quite a bit as you probably know by

now from my blog and any conversations with me, and
generally thought he got the better of it by tweaking both
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg, the latter
of whom often sounded in the debate more like a popular
university prof trying to ingratiate himself to liberal activist
grad students to persuade them to help elect him to the city
council, than a person who wants to be the head of the British
government.

I actually think Clegg's somewhat breezy/extreme comments
actually made Cameron sound even better in the comparison,
and Brown's frequent spot-on put-downs of Clegg seemed
especially effective when he talked about the LibDem and
Clegg's longstanding streak of anti-Americanism.

To me, based on what's previously been said in the campaign,
that served to remind many British voters that however
imperfect Brown or Cameron may be, Clegg is still someone
who simply can't be trusted with power.

Many of the initial post-debate polls aired on the Sky News
post-debate program I watched have said as much.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7105405.ece

The best part to me was when all three discussed the issue
of immigration in a serious and thoughtful way that I believe
a majority of Americans would very much like to hear more
of by elected officials in Washington.

Sadly, debate that national Democrats, unions and special
interest groups -and locally, the Miami Herald- are at
great pains to keep sotto voce: the current system isn't
working for the country as a whole and only seems
to encourage illegal entry, corruption and crime.
And the country does NOT favor AMNESTY for illegal
aliens.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7105727.ece

As it happens, this question was asked by a woman who
appeared to be of Caribbean descent and who said that
she'd lived in England for about 13 years.

The audience questions from a group of self-selected people
from the Bristol area -SW England- were all of a much
higher caliber than you'd generally find over here.

See http://news.sky.com/skynews/ and watch the entire debate
here: http://video.news.sky.com/skynews/video?videoSourceID=2261437&flashURL=feeds/skynews/latest/flash/ACT-BB-TH-DEBATE-FULL-220410.flv

Latest polling information is here: Poll of polls: Tories edge ahead http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/vote_2010/poll+of+polls+tories+edge+ahead/3624387

Channel 4's Saturday night newscast, April 24, 2010:
A hung Parliament in store for Britain?
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid62744310001?bclid=79125446001&bctid=79965653001


http://www.channel4.com/news/


C-SPAN
Jon-Christopher Bua and Adam Boulton on
the second debate for Prime Minister candidates, 40 minutes.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293157-6