All National Results
90% Reporting
Updated 03:24:08 AM EST

Popular Votes                              Electoral Votes    270         to win
Barack Obama, Dem     52%           59,538,468    349         WINNER
John McCain,    GOP     47%           53,582,587    147
Ralph Nader,     EPF        1%                605,546         0
Bob Barr,            Ind           0%               457,412         0

*****

(This article does not have the latest information - Comedian Democrat Al Franklyn will indeed be next Senator from Minnesota the line-up in the Senate will indeed be 60-40 with the help of the two Independents.)

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‘West Wing’ star and Democratic activist, explains what the 2008 election means to him

Wednesday, 5 November 2008

‘I wonder is this the Big One, the epiphany that leads us to brilliance in real time, or is this an aftershock’

We are on the verge of a historical, seismic shift here in America. I write this as we begin our day as citizens lining up to affect outcomes of world events not yet ready to unfold. People stop me on the street and ask me what it looks like. They ask me what will be. There is little debate left in our lungs – we are out of breath, exhausted and exhilarated and wondering what will be.

I remember the day Richard Nixon won in 1968. That was a time that seemed certain to bring about long-awaited seismic change in America. But events of tragic proportion took us on a turn. Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jnr were suddenly dead. The Vietnam War was in full throttle. Thousands of American casualties every year and no end in sight. Riots threatened the sanity of our cities. I rode the subway to school that morning. I looked at people. They read the newspaper, cracked gum, ate muffins, nodded off to catch a few more minutes of sleep before work – no different than the day before. I thought the world would surely be different. I was sure I would see a darker place; a colder Earth; an ugly city or at least a dirty look or sneer or some sign on my subway ride to school that morning that the world was in trouble.

Things happen to us and reaction is sometimes tough to measure. A cop told me once that when he pulled his weapon and shot a man for the first time the thing that struck him most was that the man seemed unbothered by the bullets that had entered his body. The man kept running for blocks – kept running and running.

I fell in love with my wife 20 years ago. I am only now, it seems, getting it through my very thick skull how lucky I am. I’ve been running and running.

If you are like me, our most powerful epiphanies find us after their effect could have been put to good use. We are often too late with our brilliance. We are on time delay. The only instant gratification comes in the form of potato chips. The rest will find us by surprise somewhere down the road, maybe as we sleep and dream of other things.

So I wonder about tomorrow. Is this a monumental moment in our lives? Is this the instance of epiphany or are we awakening from slumber and recognising the effects of cosmic shifts in paradigms that have happened long ago, from which we are too tired to keep running away? I wonder what would have been had Al Gore been allowed to accept his victory as our President. We would not be in Iraq – I know this. We would have invested heavily in green and alternative technology and we would be leading the world in an economic boon for the next generation.

There are seminal moments in our lives where our brilliance is given the chance to unfold and show itself. In the collective American consciousness we had such a moment. On election night 2000, the networks had all given Al Gore a victory in Florida after a tough and close battle all evening. The exit polls were showing a growing Gore lead that was insurmountable and so Florida was called for Gore, which would also give him the electoral numbers to claim victory. A press conference was announced in Crawford, Texas, where George W Bush and his team had holed up for the big night. Newsmen and pundits anticipated a concession speech that would declare the night officially over. But there was no concession speech and no George Bush. Instead out came Howard Baker, a Bush senior campaign adviser, Karen Hughes, the Bush communications director, and Mr Bush’s brother Jeb, the Florida Governor. Huh?

They announced, in no uncertain terms, that they did not concede Florida on this night nor did they concede the general election and they were, and this is a quote: “Getting on the phones and getting to work. We are going to win Florida!” The newsmen and women seemed stunned. I was screaming at the television asking the question: “Getting on the phone to do WHAT?” The polls had closed. There was no work to do. Everybody had already voted. Magically, the numbers changed and showed an unlikely, to say the least, turn in the count that begat the infamous recount that begat the infamous hanging chads that begat the criminal Supreme Court decision that handed the reins of power in a virtual coup d’état to the governor of Florida’s brother, George Bush.

Had we been a fighter pilot we would have been blown out of the sky. If we were Luke Skywalker, we forgot to use the force. If we were a goalie on a soccer field, we went right and the ball went left, or worse, we didn’t move at all and the ball rolled through our legs. Had we had our senses with us that day, our antennas up and our muscles taut, we could have been brilliant. We could have stormed the ranch at Crawford and taken our country before it was stolen from us. Instead we rolled over in our sleep.

So, as we stand on the verge of a shifting Earth, I wonder is this the Big One, the epiphany that leads us to brilliance in real time, or is this an aftershock. Was the Big One Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery in 1955? The Civil Rights Act of 1964? Richard Nixon’s Watergate? Crawford, Texas? 9/11?

Maybe it is the slow moving forward of lives toward death that allows evolution to do what it can by killing away ancient paradigms of supremacy of people and nation. That has allowed for a younger generation to be blind to issues of race and gender and to recognise climate change as science and not God. We lay asleep, we Americans, dreaming of making millions in mortgage madness, unbothered by battles fought and blood spilled by contractors and volunteers a million miles away. Though we did begin to worry about the cost. Has evolution caught us napping? Has this new generation moved forward and with the kindness of their spirit brought us along for the ride?

I am in my home, New York, as it happens. Today I will ride the subway. There will be gum and muffins and newspapers and some will be dozing. Will the city be beautiful this day? Time will only tell.

Subject: Mr. President Elect - Now The Bad News - You Won!  The Whole World Expects You To Perform A Transformational Miracle - Something Like Walking On Water.

Bravo America - We can say this now with certainty - it was not a mirage - Barak Hussein Obama’s Color was fading as the election time was nearing.

More and more white American’s given the choice to elect Obama or McCain realized that Obama is just like them - he had white grand parents who helped in his upbringing in predominantly white top schools the kind of schools they wished they could have attended. However, they realized also that Obama has a further advantage over them, he was culturally exposed to other worlds also - and with the collapse of the American economy, and the clear signs that America is now dependent on a plethora of cultures and colors, he may indeed have that important advantage over McCain, who though held in a Vietnamese prison, clear to all, did not learn anything from that experience, and willingly stepped into the Iraq puddle, caused by the same industrial interests, that gave the US and the world, that old Vietnamese swamp.

The good Americans know that a name does not make a man. They also feel that they were taken by the moneyed class and that much of the above-the-table anti-Obama arguments were contrived. Like their fathers or grandfathers generation when the best were “commies” and the worst were the “McCartyites, there was nothing wrong with having now casual association with folks that tried to ration differently their way at a time that the leadership of the country failed them. This is clear about the reformed Ayres & Dohrn couple, and I am now also more lenient about Wright, who it turns out was not even on the list of direct enemies compounded by the Anti-Defamation League.

The outgoing White House saw the world in Black & White. The New White House will see the world in shades of gray - and perhaps, after a while, some intellectual will stand up, and declare for all to hear, that time has come to change the name of that carbon clad building (this thanks to the insistence to be fossil fuels addicted, of the outgoing residents of the building) and call it rather the Gray House in recognition that policy is the art of compromise in a very varied world.

So, Mr. President Elect, we hope someone will show you these notes, and you feel then that you are not alone - that many people, even though they did not say this earlier, feel for you and like you. Those are the real good news!

The real bad news are that out of the Bushes you get a world that is short of trees and it is now for you to start planting the needed ideas, and the needed majestic trees, of all kind, that eventually will make the country truly great again, and help the whole world - because America does not stand-alone. As we said earlier today - Europe is waiting to renew its special relationship with a USA leader, and much of the rest of the world will love to see the rising of a benevolent leadership in what is still the major power of the world, though brought down to its knees - as beggars - because of the misdeeds of that above mentioned moneyed class.

———

Watching the TV pundits at election time, we know that 62% of the voters thought that the main problem now is the economy - then in highly decreased figures follow Iraq (10%), terrorism (9%), health care (9%), and energy policy (7%).

We trust that you will take the topics of energy policy, including all what revolves on climate change issues, and the health care topic, and use the opportunity given to you to turn those areas into the lever that will help straighten out the economy. This is the essence of your mandate and we are ready to bet that you will be using your great gift of possessing such great gray matter, and finally unwind the country, and the world, from the addiction to oil that was imposed on all of us by your predecessors. This will also help make great strides in solving the remaining main issues - that of terrorism and that of Iraq. And remember - 93% of those that voted for you showed optimism that under you the economy will improve - only 6% felt that nothing will change.

Further, remember - somewhere above 72% of the first time voters voted for you. When only the young first time voters were noted - the figure was even higher. While 78% of the voters said that age was an important factor in the way they voted, when it comes to the question of race the results are even more interesting:

From among those that said that race was an important part of their decision-making, in for whom to vote, it was 55% that decided to vote for you; on the other hand, from among those that stated that they were color blind and race was not important in deciding to vote for you - the figure was 53%. This leads to the clear conclusion that many whites, specifically in the first group, actually voted for you as a statement that they had it with the thinking of previous generations - they wanted to see change, and race is reintroduced by them in a positive way - right there - on purpose.

Also, what strengthens further your position is the reaction overseas. Not just the great happiness and pride shown in Kogelo, Kisumu, Kenya - but all over the world. To see on TV the people of Beijing saying OBAMA - they never went out of their way chanting BUSH - brings the point home that there is goodwill out there to work with you. They will honor you for who you are as long as you allow a modicum of respect for them also - The world is hungry for an American President that is open to consider all interests  rather then being a hunter for natural resources, and show of disrespect for the havoc this drive for resources causes to the local folks “over there.”

Yes, there is a yearning for “transformational” change and “generational” change, and a return to CAMELOT - something like a Camelot II led by a gray Kennedy that can make everyone feel younger and transformed.

From The Editorial and other articles in The Independent of London of November 4, 2008.

REUTERS/JASON REED
Obama speaks during his final campaign rally before the US presidential election in Manassas, Virginia, 3 November

GETTY
Barack Obama with his late grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, who died on Monday 3rd November aged 86, and his grandfather, Stanley Dunham

GETTY IMAGES
A tear for Madelyn: Barack Obama shows his emotions after speaking about the death of his grandmother at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, yesterday. Madelyn Dunham died at the age of 86 after a battle with cancer

Europe awaits new US president in time of crisis.
RENATA GOLDIROVA, for the EUOBSERVER from BRUSSELS, November 3, 2008.

She writes - Some 130 million American voters will elect on Tuesday (4 November) the new man to take over the White House. Be it Republican John McCain or Democrat Barack Obama, the winner will significantly shape EU-US relations at a time of worsening financial crisis.

The last 18 months have seen one of the most acrimonious and certainly the most expensive presidential campaign in US history, with Barack Obama currently ahead in all opinion polls.

Most Europeans would vote for the Democrat candidate

 ***

According to the latest CNN national ‘Poll of Polls’ (2 November), the 47-year old lawyer and the first African American nominated by a major political party for president has a seven-point lead over Mr McCain (53% to 46%).

But up to eight percent of people remain undecided - enough to swing the result - while turnout is expected to reach its highest figure since 1960, with some 20 million Americans haveing already cast their votes.

In the final hours on the campaign trail, both candidates are battling for “must win” states - Ohio with 20 electoral votes for senator McCain and Pennsylvania with 21 votes under the system for senator Obama.

At the same time, they both were faced with undesirable surprises.

Sarah Palin - the US vice-president hopeful in the McCain camp - found herself caught up in a phone conversation with a Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy. During the six-minute chat, they discussed hunting, Carla Bruni’s looks and Ms Palin’s presidential prospects.

Mr Obama, for his part, had to respond to a finding that his aunt from Kenya, stayed illegally in the US, despite immigration authorities turning down her asylum request four years ago.

Europeans for Obama:

US elections are followed closely on the other side of the Atlantic for their enormous global impact - especially at a time when Europe needs America to help tailor a global reform of the financial sector and to boost the fight against climate change.

If Europeans had a vote, Barack Obama would beat John McCain by large margin. He enjoys greater popularity due to the fact that he represents a more evident contrast to the politics of the outgoing president, Republican George W. Bush.

Mr Bush’s eight-year-long term has been marked by a unilateral decision to invade Iraq - something that his reputation has never recovered from, even though he later reached out to consult Europe on issues such as Iran.

According to Tomas Valasek from the London-based Centre for European Reform, none of the presidential candidates will ignore the EU’s opinion on major foreign policy issues, but each of them will bring different arguments to the table.

Barack Obama has shown more willingness to judge countries on an individual basis, not strictly within a war on terror framework, Mr Valasek told the EUobserver, citing views on Iran and Russia as significantly different to those of Mr McCain.

The Republican presidential candidate refuses to engage in talks with Tehran over its nuclear programme and he also adopted a more critical stance on Russia’s military action against Georgia in August.

McCain’s views on Russia are more in line with a Polish and Czech foreign policy approach, while Obama would gain sympathy in Germany, France and Italy, Mr Valasek said.

Financial crisis:

But the transatlantic agenda will be dominated by the financial crisis and poor economic prospects for both continents.

On 15 November, the United States will host a “Group of 20 summit,” which should kick of talks on how financial markets should be regulated. Apart from the US, the group involves Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK and the EU representative.

According to Mr Valasek, Mr Obama seems to agree with Europe when it comes to a possibility of state interventions into economy, but the risk lies in his protectionist rethoric. This could worsen the current situation, he said.

Daniel Gros from the Centre for European policy studies in Brussels described Mr McCain’s approach on the financial crisis as “more impulsive,” while noting that Democrat Obama had a very good team of advisors.

“I am certain that Obama will very carefully listen to the very good technical advice he gets,” the analyst said.

———————-

Obama surges ahead as US prepares to vote.
By Leonard Doyle, The Independent of London from Washington DC, Monday, 3 November 2008

Barack Obama is entering the home stretch of the race for the White House with an aggressive foray into traditionally Republican states, a sure indication that his campaign is in far better shape than the doomed efforts of his Democratic predecessors.

Senator Obama’s final sprint took him from Colorado and Nevada on to the industrial battleground of Ohio, where the latest Mason Dixon poll shows him leading by47 per cent to 44. Accompanied by Bruce Springsteen, Mr Obama was making a final pitch to white blue-collar voters who make up 45 per cent of the electorate. Ohio is also a make-or-break state for John McCain, since no Republican has won the White House without capturing it.

In Ohio, Mr Obama chided his opponent in a television ad that mocked the Republican’s endorsement by the deeply unpopular Vice-President Dick Cheney. “I’m delighted to support John McCain,” Mr Cheney said in his home state of Wyoming before praising the vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. In the Obama ad, the announcer says: “That’s not the change we need.” Today, Mr Obama begins a final dash for votes in the delegate-rich state of Florida. He then heads to the Republican bastion of North Carolina and intends to bring his epic campaign to a close with a late-night rally close to the Civil War battlefield of Manassas in Northern Virginia.

Mr Obama’s confidence seems to be well justified by the polls. The latest Washington Post/ABC national tracking poll gave him a 9 percentage-point lead over John McCain. He is far ahead in enough states to capture more than the 270 electoral votes that he needs to win. In the Senate, Democrats are within reach of winning 60 seats for a filibuster-proof majority and in Congress they could double their 2006 wins to have the largest majority since 1990. In the dying hours of the campaign, Mr McCain has only one viable path to victory left. He needs to hold on to every battleground state and pick off a delegate-rich Democratic state such as Pennsylvania as well. However, the polls put his opponent so comfortably ahead there, that Mr Obama is not even bothering to campaign in person in the final countdown.

Another tactic the Republican side is employing is to warn wavering voters that a victory by Mr Obama will give Democrats unfettered control of the White House and Congress. They will use it to raise taxes, expand the government and fly the flag of surrender in the war on terror, at a time of crisis.

Mr McCain was back on the trail in Pennsylvania yesterday, hoping to repeat Hillary Clinton’s wounding victory over Mr Obama in the primaries. Then he was headed to New Hampshire; a state that has been kind to him in the past and has twice brought him back from the political dead.

Mr McCain is facing stiffer headwinds in both these states this time with both tilting firmly to his opponent. Mr McCain was due to make a midnight dash for a rally in Miami last night. His final 24 hours before the polling booths open is set to be a blur of must-win states including appearances in Florida, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada. The Republican is spending election day in his home state of Arizona, which could also be vulnerable according to the polls.

Mr Obama’s confidence in his strategy is seen by the fact that four years ago at this stage, John Kerry was still hunting for votes in Pennsylvania and only dipping his toe into the red states of Ohio and Florida. In 2000, Al Gore was floundering in Missouri, Ohio and Florida on the eve of the election.

Senator Obama’s final appearance in Virginia, where only 11 electoral votes are on offer, is an opportunity to drive a nail into his opponent’s political coffin by snatching away a state that has been reliably Republican for decades.

After a bruising presidential contest, marked by a viciously negative campaign of character assassination against him, Mr Obama wants to conclude with a gesture of national healing and a final appeal to undecided Republicans.

Mr McCain advisers maintain that his salvation will be so-called “Wal-Mart women” making less than $60,000 (£37,000) a year. Those female voters are said to have found a hero in Sarah Palin and working-class men have been inspired by Joe the Plumber – the McCain theory goes.

There is little or no polling evidence to back up the theory but two consecutive defeats in presidential elections mean the Democrats are anything but complacent about the final outcome.

Stan Greenberg, who was Bill Clinton’s pollster, is predicting a watershed election in which Senator Obama could take the White House with a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the Senate and that the Democratic margin in the House could double.

This Stock Collapse Is Petty When Compared to the Nature Crunch.
By George Monbiot, The Guardian. Posted October 15, 2008.

The financial crisis at least affords us an opportunity to now rethink our catastrophic ecological trajectory.

This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what’s coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.

As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year as a result of deforestation alone.

The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services — such as locking up carbon and providing fresh water — that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.

***

The two crises have the same cause. In both cases, those who exploit the resource have demanded impossible rates of return and invoked debts that can never be repaid. In both cases we denied the likely consequences. I used to believe that collective denial was peculiar to climate change. Now I know that it’s the first response to every impending dislocation.

***

Gordon Brown, for instance, was as much in denial about financial realities as any toxic debt trader. In June last year, during his Mansion House speech, he boasted that 40% of the world’s foreign equities are now traded here. The financial sector’s success had come about, he said, partly because the government had taken “a risk-based regulatory approach”. In the same hall three years before, he pledged that “in budget after budget I want us to do even more to encourage the risk takers”. Can anyone, surveying this mess, now doubt the value of the precautionary principle?

Ecology and economy are both derived from the Greek word oikos — a house or dwelling. Our survival depends on the rational management of this home: the space in which life can be sustained. The rules are the same in both cases. If you extract resources at a rate beyond the level of replenishment, your stock will collapse. That’s another noun which reminds us of the connection. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 69 definitions of “stock”. When it means a fund or store, the word evokes the trunk — or stock — of a tree, “from which the gains are an outgrowth”. Collapse occurs when you prune the tree so heavily that it dies. Ecology is the stock from which all wealth grows.

The two crises feed each other. As a result of Iceland’s financial collapse, it is now contemplating joining the European Union, which means surrendering its fishing grounds to the common fisheries policy. Already the prime minister, Geir Haarde, has suggested that his countrymen concentrate on exploiting the ocean. The economic disaster will cause an ecological disaster.

Normally it’s the other way around. In his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond shows how ecological crisis is often the prelude to social catatrosphe. The obvious example is Easter Island, where society disintegrated soon after the population reached its highest historical numbers, the last trees were cut down and the construction of stone monuments peaked. The island chiefs had competed to erect ever bigger statues. These required wood and rope (made from bark) for transport, and extra food for the labourers. As the trees and soils on which the islanders depended disappeared, the population crashed and the survivors turned to cannibalism. Diamond wonders what the Easter islander who cut down the last palm tree might have thought. “Like modern loggers, did he shout ‘Jobs, not trees!’? Or: ‘Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we’ll find a substitute for wood.’? Or: ‘We don’t have proof that there aren’t palms somewhere else on Easter … your proposed ban on logging is premature and driven by fear-mongering’?”.

***

Ecological collapse, Diamond shows, is as likely to be the result of economic success as of economic failure. The Maya of Central America, for instance, were among the most advanced and successful people of their time. But a combination of population growth, extravagant construction projects and poor land management wiped out between 90% and 99% of the population. The Mayan collapse was accelerated by “the competition among kings and nobles that led to a chronic emphasis on war and erecting monuments rather than on solving underlying problems”. (Does any of this sound familiar?) Again, the largest monuments were erected just before the ecosystem crashed. Again, this extravagance was partly responsible for the collapse: trees were used for making plaster with which to decorate their temples. The plaster became thicker and thicker as the kings sought to outdo each other’s conspicuous consumption.

***

Here are some of the reasons why people fail to prevent ecological collapse. Their resources appear at first to be inexhaustible; a long-term trend of depletion is concealed by short-term fluctuations; small numbers of powerful people advance their interests by damaging those of everyone else; short-term profits trump long-term survival. The same, in all cases, can be said of the collapse of financial systems. Is this how human beings are destined to behave? If we cannot act until stocks — of either kind — start sliding towards oblivion, we’re knackered.

***
But one of the benefits of modernity is our ability to spot trends and predict results.

If fish in a depleted ecosystem grow by 5% a year and the catch expands by 10% a year, the fishery will collapse. If the global economy keeps growing at 3% a year (or 1,700% a century), it too will hit the wall.

I am not going to suggest, as some scoundrel who shares a name with me did on these pages last year, that we should welcome a recession. But the financial crisis provides us with an opportunity to rethink this trajectory; an opportunity that is not available during periods of economic success. Governments restructuring their economies should read Herman Daly’s book Steady-State Economics.

As usual I haven’t left enough space to discuss this, so the details will have to wait for another column. Or you can read the summary published by the Sustainable Development Commission (all references are on my website). But what Daly suggests is that nations which are already rich should replace growth — “more of the same stuff” — with development — “the same amount of better stuff”.

A steady-state economy has a constant stock of capital that is maintained by a rate of throughput no higher than the ecosystem can absorb.

The use of resources is capped and the right to exploit them is auctioned.

Poverty is addressed through the redistribution of wealth. The banks can lend only as much money as they possess.

Alternatively, we can persist in the magical thinking whose results have just come crashing home.

The financial crisis shows what happens when we try to make the facts fit our desires. Now we must learn to live in the real world.

—————-
George Monbiot is the author Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. Read more of his writings at Monbiot.com.          This article originally appeared in the Guardian.

United States
The Congress
A landslide looms.
Oct 30th 2008 | DARIEN, CONNECTICUT AND LACONIA, NEW HAMPSHIRE
From The Economist print edition

Republicans warn of the perils of one-party rule says the Economist.

CHARGED with concealing $250,000-worth of gifts from a contractor, including a hideous statue of a fish, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska opted for a quick trial to clear his name before election day. But he was found guilty this week. His career is over. And he is not the only Republican about to feel the voters’ boot on his ignoble behind. The polls predict a Democratic landslide on both sides of Capitol Hill.

In the House of Representatives, the Democrats could increase their 36-seat majority by two dozen or so. In the Senate, where they have only a tenuous 51-49 advantage, and that only thanks to the support of two independents, they could win a commanding majority. They might even get to 60 seats, the magic number that strips the minority party of its power to use filibusters to block bills it objects to. Only two Democratic senators are likely to lose their seats: Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And if they win the White House, the governors of Illinois and Delaware will name Democrats to replace them.

Some voters think an all-Democratic Washington might be too much of a good thing. Too much power breeds extremism, as Americans discovered when Republicans ruled the roost between 2002 and 2006. Historically, one-party rule has also been fiscally profligate: presidents are slower to veto wasteful spending by their congressional allies.

What is more, although some of the bums about to be thrown out are indeed bums, the most embattled Republicans are typically moderates representing swing states or districts.

Consider Chris Shays of Connecticut’s 4th district, one of the nation’s richest. He is a free-trading social liberal who voted with President Bush less often last year than Hillary Clinton did. He has a number of pragmatic ideas, such as a “blue card” for illegal immigrants that would allow them to stay and work in America without letting them jump the queue for citizenship. In his ads, he claims to offer “the hopefulness of Obama” and “the straight talk of McCain”. He is the last House Republican in New England, and he has a bull’s-eye on his back.

The national Democratic Party is pouring money into ads that portray him as a Bush clone. Mr Shays responds by handing out an 88-page booklet describing his moderate record. Early one morning at a station in his district, he shakes hands and commiserates with all the Wall Street commuters who have lost a packet this year. Most are friendly. Some worry that Democrats will overtax the rich or overreach in regulating banks.

Some say they will vote both for Mr Shays and for Mr Obama. But others are upset about the Iraq war, which Mr Shays supported. Polls show him slightly behind his challenger, Jim Himes, a former banker. If people like Mr Shays lose their seats, the Republicans will become a more extreme party, and a less national one.

In the Senate, the stakes are even higher. Of the dozen senators facing tough races, only one is a Democrat—Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and she is ahead in the polls. The Republicans, on the other hand, are in terrible shape. The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is struggling to defend his seat. Swing states such as Colorado and New Mexico are poised to reject Republican senators. Even red states such as Georgia and North Carolina might elect Democrats.

And Republican moderates are perhaps in even greater peril in the Senate than they are in the House. John Warner of Virginia is retiring, and almost certain to be replaced by a Democrat. Norm Coleman of Minnesota could lose to a comedian, Al Franken. Gordon Smith of Oregon is desperately trying to link himself to Mr Obama, and John Sununu of New Hampshire is in deep trouble.

If they thought the House was bad…

AP

Sunset for Sununu?
At a rotary club, Mr Sununu offers voters reasons not to sack him. As the only engineer in the lawyer-stuffed Senate, he says, he is good at solving problems. And he tried five years ago to curb the reckless loans that fuelled the housing bubble. Though a bit awkward on the stump, Mr Sununu is one of his party’s most thoughtful lawmakers. He is a fiscal hawk, socially tolerant and less dogmatically pro-Israel than most other Republicans (he is of Lebanese descent). At 44, he is the youngest senator, and has been tipped for greater things. But his opponent, a former governor named Jeanne Shaheen, is no lightweight, and can piggyback on Mr Obama’s mighty get-out-the-vote machine.

Mr Sununu gives warning that with a 60-seat majority in the Senate the Democrats could ram through tax increases and pass a batch of bad laws. For starters, they would abolish the right to a secret ballot before workers are unionised. They might also revive the “fairness doctrine”, a rule that once forced radio stations to offer “balanced” political coverage or face lawsuits. Mr Obama says he does not support this idea, but congressional Democrats would love to shut down conservative talk radio, and Republicans doubt that Mr Obama would stop them.

For many conservatives, the most alarming consequence of a Democratic supermajority in the Senate is that it would allow a President Obama to appoint any judges he likes. With five of the nine Supreme Court justices over 70 and many seats on lower courts deliberately left vacant by the Democratic Senate in anticipation of a Democratic president, that could have far-reaching consequences.

Mr Obama might make good choices—his choice of advisers has usually been sound. But he has promised to pick judges for their “empathy” and “understanding” of “what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.” That could just be campaign blather, but conservatives fear he means it: that he really does want judges to favour the underdog rather than uphold the law dispassionately as their oath of office requires. Stephen Calabresi, a conservative jurist, says an Obama court could usher in ruinous shareholder lawsuits, huge punitive damages and even a constitutional right to welfare.

Democrats retort that if voters like Mr Obama’s platform, which they seem to do at the moment, then electing a lot of Democrats to Congress will ensure that they get what they want faster. It is a fair point. But Mr Obama’s most ambitious plans, such as reforming health care and curbing carbon emissions, will be hard to carry out without input and support from moderates in both parties. That was how Bill Clinton’s welfare reforms and Ronald Reagan’s Social Security reforms succeeded. By contrast, Hillary Clinton failed to deliver universal health care because she failed to build a cross-party consensus for it. With any luck, a President Obama would not make the same mistake.

Energy Security   by  Sascha Müller-Kraenner.    

Earthscan - £19.99
Hardback - September 2008
208 pages
ISBN: 9781844075829

Related Subject Areas:
Politics, Governance and Law
Energy
Climate Change

‘If we can achieve energy security we can not only free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels - we can also realize environmental security and a whole host of other central developmental and poverty alleviation goals.’
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme

‘Energy security is a huge, multifaceted game of foreign policy. This book not only gives a comprehensive overview of what politicians and resource managers must know but also cleverly weaves in perspectives of the environment, international organizations, and the potentials of energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.’
Ernst von Weizsäcker, Co-Chair, International Panel on Sustainable Resource Management

‘Accessible and exciting … [this] is the first truly objective examination of the relationship between resource scarcity, security and ecological destruction.’
Neues Deutschland

‘It is the author’s great achievement to enlighten his readers about the interface between energy supply and politics.’
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

‘With history lessons, economic insights, environmental science observations, demographic trends, policy analysis, and even elements of a political thriller, Müller-Kraenner cuts through the confusion and complexity, clarifying the options for a sustainable energy future.’
Dan Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, Yale University

‘Essential reading for everyone who wants to understand how Europe should respond to the double challenge of energy security and climate change.’
Bernice Lee, Research Director, Energy, Environment and Resource Governance, Chatham House

HUMANITY STANDS AT A THRESHOLD: will its shared energy future be peaceful, or will it be threatened by resource wars? How can rapidly depleting resources be managed to the advantage of all, and therefore conflicts averted? How can we avoid irreparable damage to the last areas of untouched natural beauty, all in the name of accessing valuable resources? And how do we arrive at an international energy policy which not only provides safe, economical energy without conflict, but also addresses the all-important issue of climate change: What is the best way to achieve greater energy security?

Energy Security addresses all of these questions, arguing for an urgent overhaul of international law and institutions to control relations with countries such as Russia, which own the world’s remaining fuel supplies. The book presents alternatives to fossil fuels as two diametrically opposing strategies: the increased use of atomic energy; and a comprehensive climate protection policy with a focus on energy efficiency and renewable energy. In times of international terrorism, there are heightened concerns about nuclear proliferation, and Energy Security argues that the future must belong to renewable energy.

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Sascha Müller-Kraenner is Senior Policy Adviser and the European Representative to The Nature Conservancy. He is also a partner of Ecologic Institute (Berlin) and a lecturer at the Hertie School of Governance.

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Contents: Introduction, What is Energy Security?  -  Facing a New Energy Crisis  -  The Great Game for Measuring the World  - Energy Superpower Russia  -  The Rise of Asia  - A Common European Energy Policy  - Defending the Last Paradise  - Ways Out of Dependence: Solar or Nuclear?  - The Strength of the Law and the Diplomacy of the Future - Index