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While I more or less agree with Larry and even Bill Black, there are a few things that we should keep in mind: 1. Let’s begin with Bismarck: “Politics is the art of the possible”. 2. Second, the US is not a parliamentary democracy and it really is amazing what Obama achieved in his first term in office given that there are such things as filibusters and Blue Dog Democrats who are just amazingly right wing – what’s the joke, “I belong to no political party, I’m a Democrat”. One of my PhD students analyzed voting patterns in the past Congress using a discriminant analysis and the democrats are just all over the place, sometimes more right wing than the Republicans (no, he hasn’t yet published it). So, here in the US, there is no party discipline, no party whips, anything goes. 3. The Americans were absolutely horrified when the British last go round elected what turned out to be a coalition government. How would it ever work they asked? Well, unfortunately it works all too well. One surprising thing is that no American government would try to double or triple tuition fees, although the Republicans did want to pull a similar stunt on the interest rates students would pay on their loans. 4. If you still are not convinced that Obama will make no difference then you might find it informative to listen to Rachel Maddow’s comments on how different a new Obama administration will be compared to a Romney presidency. Sure an Obama administration will not do enough for my tastes but it is infinitely better than what could have been. Here’s the link to Rachel Maddow: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#49736294 You may have to watch the commercial but you will get everything you need to know about how different things will be in the first two minutes. It goes fast and you will have to understand a few things about American politics. Re the comment on Romney’s character as a bully in high school, she does not also mention that he subsequently protested for the Vietnam War and then himself dodged the draft. ****************************************************** Please note that if you press the 'Reply' button your message will go only to the sender of this message. If you want to reply to the whole list, use your mailer's 'Reply-to-All' button to send your message automatically to [log in to unmask] Disclaimer: The messages sent to this list are the views of the sender and cannot be assumed to be representative of the range of views held by subscribers to the Radical Statistics Group. To find out more about Radical Statistics and its aims and activities and read current and past issues of our newsletter you are invited to visit our web site www.radstats.org.uk. *******************************************************