06 November, 2008

US Elections: change you can hope for

Not long ago a young friend wanted to interview for a job in a management consultancy. Being a cynic, I told her that if she wanted a job she had to use the word 'change' during the interview and that if she could mention it more than twice they would make her a manager. It worked, of course.

The same seems to go for politicians. The change we need, the change you can believe in, the candidate for change, it all seems to excite the voters into an endogenous righteous frenzy when they are a bit fed up with the way things are. Obama has been very careful to specify as little as possible what this change is going to be (other than the colour of the President's skin, which I admit is a change) and in my opinion, despite huge gains in Congress which ought to give him an easy time, the President elect should quickly start to dampen expectations. When the working class man has voted for 'Change' and then loses his job or has his house repossessed he is going to be highly disillusioned.

Obama has some tough times facing him and ought to start thinking about his second term now. In 2012 things still won't be great and he will need to stand on the Gordon Brown ticket - the guy with the experience to get us through this - the difference being that Obama didn't actually cause the problems in the first place.

In any case, I really don't think there are going to be many changes. It isn't the West Wing, it's real life.

No comments: