Boss Radio

We're talking US elections here. I've been following them ardently for weeks and, just as long as I don't have to vote in them, they are the most exciting thing on the air at the moment. To prove it the BBC World Service did a special about the election foreplay where people from various parts of the world all got in touch to say "What's all the fuss? We've had a female/black/black and female president for years. It's about time the US caught up." Oh all right, they didn't quite all say that, a lot of them were discussing what effect the US choice of president might have upon them, but that stuff's boring, so here's my take on things.

Just look at the choice. From right to left we have Huckleberry Mike Huckabee who seems like a real nice guy and surprisingly normal (Hey, he even plays bass guitar!), but unfortunately after a while he begins to give the impression that he doesn't really know that much about anything outside his own back door. Next to him is Mitt, who surprisingly is not a glove puppet, he really is rich and dashing and therefore has no place in this election. (Are you sure of that? - The Man in the Big Hat) Oh yeah. He seems to believe that there is nothing wrong in trying to buy your way into the White House, that's what's a no-no. I'm glad he's gone, I don't want anyone who's younger, better looking, and richer than me as pres.

John McCain, now there's a guy. He has just the right amount of rebelliousness to appeal to me. Except he supported the war so that makes him ... actually, not so bad. At least he wouldn't drag the troops back without making sure Iraq wasn't going to fall apart as soon as the troops left. One of the callers on the World Service programme was undecided between McCain and Barack Obama. Now that's what I call a mixed up kid. Obama seems like a great orator, but either he has no policies to speak of or he hasn't yet got the hang of the sound-bite. He's running Hillary Clinton a very close race. Clinton apparently frightens people away which surprises me quite a bit. Her husband put money in people's pockets and didn't start any wars (In fact he ended one) and the absolutely worst thing his oponents could find to say about him was that he'd had a blow-job. When your opposition can't find anything in the way you're running the country to complain about surely you have to be doing something right?

Now, I read a lot of American newspapers. They arrive as packaging with records and laserdiscs that I import from the states because Bush has let the economy slide to the point where it's cheaper for me to buy them from the US than to source them locally. The American press is like the UK press, overwhelmingly right wing, so when I read all these stories about Obama being the right guy to take on McCain I find myself wondering. To me Clinton is the one with the experience and background knowledge to take on McCain, Obama's oratory skills would be useless against McCain in a Q & A situation. I just have this uncertain feeling that Obama is the one that McCain's supporters want their man to come up against.

Of course from the Democratic side the solution seems so obvious that it seems beyond belief that no one has taken Clinton and Obama to one side and told them to get on with it. Obama is a young man. In 8 years he'll still be a young man, Clinton on the other hand will be pretty much unelectably old in 8 years time. So the dream ticket is Clinton for President and Obama for vice-president ready to step straight into the post in 8 years time.

...but we're talking about politicians here, not very strong on long term thinking and as I've said many times before, the very people most unsuitable for the job of politician, so they won't do anything logical or sensible and as a result McCain will probably sneak in. Or Obama may just steal it. Or maybe Hillary will just sqeeze through.

What do you mean, I'm hedging my bets? I'll have you know I'm pretty certain about two things.

The next president of the USA won't have a massive mandate, and he or she won't be a bass player either...

There were council elections all over Britain yesterday, which isn't that unusual, but something really unusual did happen all the same.

It wasn't the inordinate number of spoilt votes, that was mainly down to people not reading the ballot paper, and it wasn't down to the electronic counting machines that... erm... didn't do a very good job. It wasn't even down to the "Nail biting" battle between New Labour and the SNP, which could be the start of the break up of the United Kingdom, although it is interesting to note that, whatever the outcome, if the result is going to be this close then it's quite probable that it could have been changed if the thousands of spoilt votes hadn't been spoilt. At least one candidate got in with a majority of less than the number of spoilt ballot papers. I wonder if that thought will give them many sleepless nights?

Nope. The really unusual thing had to do with a candidate who got no votes. This wasn't some independent campaigning on a weirdness ticket, or a publicity stunt, this was a gen-u-ine Conservative party candidate, properly seconded by at least 8 people, none of whom, it would appear, voted for him. Indeed, unless he forgot to vote, the guy didn't even vote for himself. There is no record of this ever happening to a candidate who was still alive at the time of the ballot. Come to think of it, there's no record of it ever happening, period.

I wonder if the people who voted for him were the people who didn't read their voting papers and wound up on the spoilt votes pile?

It could happen.

In Bizarro world.