COMMENTARY | The Spanish conservatives won a decisive election Sunday, ousting the ruling Spanish Socialists. Could something similar happen in America in the 2012 election?
There are some striking similarities between the Spanish case and the American situation. The party in charge was blamed for the economic turmoil wracking the country. And the conservative Popular Party has been promoting change.
There are even more similarities between Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy and the likely Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. And those similarities are more than just the initials "M.R." Rajoy has run before for office, like Romney. Rajoy is like Romney in that both rarely provide more than vague ideas on taxes and spending cuts. Both are relatively bland, struggle somewhat with providing a personal touch and adopt strategies of "flexibility." In other words, Spain picked a pragmatist instead of an ideologue and settled for flavorless over flamboyant.
That's what Republicans are doing by seriously considering picking Romney to lead the party. It should be comforting to the GOP that a Romneyesque candidate can win
But there are some differences between the two cases. First, Spain is a parliamentary system, where parties pick leaders and prime ministers, while voters merely pick seats. In America's presidential system, the party nominees are on the ballot.
Second, Spain's problems are more severe than ours. Spain's unemployment is a whopping 21.5 percent, more than twice as bad as America's rate.
Third, outgoing Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is no Barack Obama. The Spanish Socialist leader's ratings were far below that of the U.S. president. Not only had Zapatero been the country's leader since 2004 (twice as long as Obama), but he presided over his country's real estate bubble and meltdown.
Fourth, European analogies for American elections are not always perfect. American papers used the election results of 1992 in the United Kingdom (where conservative John Major of the Tories held off a challenge from the more liberal Neil Kinnock of the Labor Party) to predict success for George H.W. Bush against Bill Clinton. It didn't work out so well for the GOP.
Still, the Democratic Party can't afford to ignore how a conservative party with an uninspiring leader defeated left-of-center incumbents, holding them accountable for economic problems.
sarah palin espn body issue ijustine visionary guy kawasaki jani lane the exorcism of emily rose
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন