After Bush spoke, McCain said that his endorsement would "help me enormously in the process of uniting our party and moving forward." (CNN)
I wouldn’t be so happy if I were McCain. Right now Americans are sick to the core with the mess created by Bush Junior during his 7 years in office. They are desperately looking for change. Thus anyone who wants to be the next president should be fleeing in the opposite direction from anything to do with the ‘worse than fierce tiger.
In Singapore we had a similar situation in the last election. The PAP was desperate to win over Potong Pasir from Chiam See Tong. And so they brought in the big gun – or so they thought, in the person of former prime minister Goh Chok Tong to endorse their candidate, whose name I cannot even recall. Goh Chok Tong even threw in lots of goodies in the form of lift upgrading and that sort of stuff to entice Potong Pasir voters, assuming that Singaporean are kiasu and cannot resist goodies.
PAP as we know, lost, and I doubt Potong Pasir residents ever saw Goh Chok Tong again.
4 comments:
A couple of years back I saw a wobbily old man walking near a coffeeshop at 6th avenue Bukit Timah, and was quite sure that he was Chiam, the opposition MP of Potong Pasir. I thought to myself why was the ruling party so afraid of this guy as though he was a super politician capable of beating the PAP at every turn, notwithstanding that the ruling party has a proud track record of election successes since 1959. Why is there a need to throw in political carrots to the residents of Potong Pasir? By just displaying the trade-mark PAP 'quality' would suffice, treating the Potong Pasir residents equally like the others in PAP controlled wards - nothing more, nothing less.
Americans must be politically savvy enough not to elect a president who is just good in giving nice-to-hear speeches or a political actor good enough to be awarded an oscar in hollywood. I can still remember seeing young George W standing as a co-pilot beside the main pilot, helmet in hand, grinning broadly, but did he actually piloting the fighter plane? Later on when flew down to the aircraft carrier, also helmet in hand, beside the main pilot, declaring that 'mission (in Iraq) accomplished'- did he really help to pilot the plane? and worse did the the war in Iraq end? The message Americans is to beware of sleek-talking to-be president. Don't be taken in that easily or regret for the next four years, if still in dreamland, another eight years.
If Americans are politically savvy, they wouldn't have voted for Bush for not one but two terms.
There is a guiding principle when judging people who are going for high offices - that is to monitor what they do in the past and the present. We need not pay much attention to what they say they can do for the future, because their promises could be empty.
Post a Comment