If there are any American political junkies out there in this pre-mid term election lull, needing a super-strength \u201cfix,\u201d look no farther than the UK election brawl.<\/p>\n
The race for a new British Prime Minister and Parliament is getting down and dirty\u2026just the way we like it.<\/p>\n
Front runner Conservative candidate David Cameron had an extended and emotional face-off on the street this week with the father of a disabled child complaining about government service.<\/p>\n
Now that third party Liberal Democrat challenger Nick Clegg is a contender his genealogy (Dutch and Russian background, Spanish wife) has been raked over the UK nationalistic coals.<\/p>\n
But nothing beats the gaffe-gate incumbent Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has gotten himself stuck in.<\/p>\n
After a discussion with a disgruntled retiree he met on the stump, which included immigration policy (the woman was concerned about the number of eastern European newcomers here), the PM sped off in his car and muttered to his aide something about the woman being a \u201cbigot.\u201d<\/p>\n
What he didn\u2019t know is the wireless microphone which our sister network Sky News had attached to him for their pool coverage of the day was still on, his remarks dutifully recorded, and then broadcast to England.<\/p>\n
The rest of the day, needless to say, was spent with Brown trying to extricate his foot from his mouth, apologizing to anyone who would listen (even a new face-to-face meeting with the lady in question).<\/p>\n
That didn\u2019t stop every newspaper spreading the event all across their front pages. The Daily Telegraph declared it\u00a0a \u201cDay of Disaster.\u201d\u00a0 Our sister newspaper The\u00a0Sun was more succinct : “Brown ‘Toast'”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Any pol watcher in the states will say this just goes with the territory. Gaffes are part of the domain, especially ones said into microphones thought to be\u2026dormant (W\u2019s less-than-friendly remark about a NY Times reporter, Reagan\u2019s declaration of war on Russia, the list goes on).<\/p>\n
But for some folks here in Britain this is just one more sign of the Americanization of the one-time controlled and careful British electoral process.<\/p>\n
Thursday night will see the last of three American-style TV debates between the candidates. It s the first time this has happened in Blighty.<\/p>\n
The analysis of the debates has been dominated more by how the candidates looked and spoke\u2026rather than what they actually said.<\/p>\n
What the Brits haven\u2019t done is extend their campaign to the epic length our \u201cRun\u2019s for the White House\u201d clock in at. It\u2019s only a month long, election day is May 6. A lot of people here are grateful for that.<\/p>\n
But what it does mean that all this US branded sleaze, stump, hustings, and gaffes comes at voters in a much more concentrated way. Which is leaving the British public gasping for air.<\/p>\n
As for the issues involved? It\u2019s one more way the UK is following us down into the political gutter. Those have become decidedly secondary to the personality race.<\/p>\n
And that race, by the way, remains, \u201cneck and neck.\u201d<\/p>\n
Again\u2026the way we like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If there are any American political junkies out there in this pre-mid term election lull, needing a super-strength \u201cfix,\u201d look no farther than the UK election brawl. The race for a new British Prime Minister and Parliament is getting down and dirty\u2026just the way we like it. Front runner Conservative candidate David Cameron had an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4512,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}