I’m going to tell you how the Dems can win the next election despite what the CADRES poll says.
But first let’s take a look at elections elsewhere.
Venezuela. I hope Henrique Capriles can defeat Chavez in the election today.
Chavez is a would-be dictator whose first political venture was to stage a failed military coup.
His subsequent electoral emergence was due to the utter incompetence and corruption of the two previous mainstream parties: COPEI and Acción Democrática – a lesson for the region.
Chavez has trashed freedom of the Press, pillaged the Venezuelan economy, violated human rights, and embarrassed all Venezuelans with his international posturing and childish behaviour. This, sadly, in a country with a long and distinguished reputation in international relations.
Chavez, of course, is one of the darlings of the international left, which speaks volumes about the latter’s intellectual and moral bankruptcy. Another darling is Julian Assange of WikiLeaks.
Assange is a convicted thief who is trying to flee charges of rape and sexual abuse by seeking refuge in the London embassy of Ecuador, a country with a government that routinely violates human rights. He’s a hero to the left because he stole emails from the American government and published them on the Web.
This pleased those who are viscerally anti-American. But imagine if he had stolen your own medical and financial records and put them on the Internet for all to see. Not so great then, right? May he spend the rest of his days cooped up in the embassy.
After Obama’s lacklustre performance in Wednesday’s debate, the race between him and Romney will tighten, though Obama will still win. The Romney that showed up for the debate was the pragmatic corporate executive shorn of his extreme right-wing positions. Obama did not even challenge him on his devastating 47 per cent remark! Obama looked flat.
However, Romney’s problem is that he’s still tied to the Republican Party, which has been captured by a bunch of right-wing crazies who, in economics, worship the megalomaniac crypto-Nazi writer Ayn Rand who believed that only greed was good, helping others was evil, and belief in God was for spineless wimps.
In social policy Republicans reject the science of evolution and climate change, believe in “legitimate” rape, and worship a vengeful God who will wipe out homosexuals, feminists, Muslims and Democrats, and of course Barack Obama, who is a secret Muslim from Mars.
Now to Barbados. The CADRES poll does not lie. The DLP will, if nothing happens, lose the next election. Most incumbent parties presiding over a bad economy suffer the same fate. But the Prime Minister can change that by shaking things up – big time.
All he has to do is announce, when he calls the election, that he will be stepping down immediately after the election and allowing the elected DLP members of Parliament to choose a new Prime Minister for the second term.
This stroke of genius will accomplish the following.
It will energize the candidates and the party base, some of whom may have been thinking of sitting out this election.
It will appeal to swing voters who are inclined to give a party two terms of office, but are concerned about the DLP’s apparent lack of urgency in grappling with the challenges that beset us.
True, the Government has stabilized the economy and cushioned Bajans from the worst of the recession, but people are now restless for a vision of a resurgent Barbados and a plan to lead us from paralysis to prosperity.
It will appeal to swing voters who, while recognizing that Mr Arthur has one of the soundest grasps of economics in the region, still recall how in his third term he had become excessively arrogant – a far cry from the humble first-term listener to one and all.
Finally, it will allow the present Prime Minister to go down in history as a brilliant political strategist.
Ah well, back to reality.
• Peter Laurie is retired diplomat and commentator on social issues.
