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Wednesday October 3, 2012

October 3, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday October 3, 2012

In the first U.S. presidential debate, will Romney deliver under pressure?

When it comes to pre-game talk, the U.S. presidential candidates are involved in an unusual display of talking down their own skills.

“Governor Romney, he’s a good debater. I’m just okay,” President Barack Obama told a Las Vegas rally Sunday ahead of Wednesday’s much-anticipated first televised debate.

Over in the Mitt Romney camp, vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan was also setting expectations low, telling Fox News Sunday that he doesn’t believe “one event is going to make or break the campaign.”

But, in fact, debates matter – and the TV audience for the first of three presidential debates could exceed 60 million viewers.

The Globe invited two strategists – a Republican, who worked with Mitt Romney, and a Democrat, who has worked in the Clinton White House and in presidential campaigns – to share their expectations for what each campaign needs to do this week in order to win the White House on November 6th .

This week in American politics represents a key pivot point in the campaign, and the debate really matters. In our primaries, debates were ultimately the arbiters of the outcome, as voters judged with their own eyes and made determinations about who should be our standard bearer.

For the Romney campaign, the stakes of the week should be viewed through the prism of three key elements that dictate the success, or lack thereof, of any campaign.

They are what I call the 3 M’s of politics: message, momentum, and money. You need all of them in healthy portions at key times to win. This race is no exception. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Wednesday March 21, 2012

March 21, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday March 21, 2012

Attack ads may force Rae’s hand

You can tell when Bob Rae is getting annoyed – the contrived chuckle is superceded by a sound like a sausage stewing in its own grease. When he was asked about the new Conservative ads that attack his record as Ontario’s NDP premier on CBC’s Power & Politics, he started to fizz and pop.

The ads ask if Mr. Rae “couldn’t run a province, why does he think he can run Canada?” They have clearly chafed the interim Liberal leader. If the Conservatives are going to highlight all the bad news that happened on his watch, they should also mention the Toronto Blue Jays won two World Series, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the Soviet Union collapsed, he told Evan Solomon. Eh? Maybe he’d been out in the unseasonably sunny weather too long without a hat.

“I’m not uniquely responsible” for the recession that sent unemployment and deficits soaring in Ontario in the early 1990s, he said. No – but the NDP government made the worst of a bad job, by the account of even the most charitable observers.

Mr. Rae now thinks the Liberal party has a “responsibility” to respond and defend his record as NDP premier. The party is planning to raise new money in response to the ad and mount a counterattack with those funds.

This has triggered a backlash from a number of Liberals I spoke to Tuesday, who are uncomfortable about the idea of squandering the party’s meagre war chest to defend the man who is still, nominally, the interim leader.

In public, Mr. Rae dismisses the thought he might run to be permanent leader as “idle speculation.” But in his own mind, it seems, he already has the job. If you doubt this, go to the Liberal.ca website and scroll to the Meet Bob Rae section, where he is introduced as “Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.” (Source: National Post)

Thursday April 30, 2009

April 30, 2009 by Graeme MacKay

April 30, 2009

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 30, 2009

WHO Warns of Imminent World-Wide Pandemic

The United Nations public-health agency raised its global pandemic alert level to phase 5 from phase 4 Wednesday, indicating the A/H1N1 virus has caused outbreaks in at least two countries in one region. “All countries should immediately activate their pandemic preparation plans” and be on “high alert” for outbreaks, said WHO Director-General Margaret Chan.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan issues a statement on the decision to raise the influenza pandemic alert to phase 5 and urging everyone to take the alert seriously. Video courtesy of Fox News. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in a televised address that only essential businesses such as supermarkets, hospitals and pharmacies should stay open, and only critical government workers such as police and soldiers would be on duty from Friday through Tuesday. School had already been canceled nationwide.

The steps are aimed at stopping further spread of the virus, blamed for 168 deaths in Mexico and one in the U.S., even though the WHO has suggested nations should focus on minimizing its effects, not containing its spread.

Dr. Chan said the decision to raise the alert level was made after the agency established that sustained person-to-person transmission was occurring in the U.S., in addition to Mexico. The outbreak at a private school in the New York City borough of Queens caught the attention of WHO officials, because students who had traveled to Mexico returned to campus and infected others. (Source: Wall Street Journal)