I’m posting again :)

“It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

 On November 4th, Barrack Obama stood in front of a jubilant crowd at Grant Park, in Chicago, Illinois and celebrated his victory in the US presidential election. His victory speech promised a new dawn for America, a renewal of the fundamental promise of the nation, a new style of politics, and the reconstruction of the countries ailing economy. Four days later, half a world away and in front of a much smaller but no less enthusiastic crowd, John Key delivered his own victory speech after finally toppling Helen Clark’s Labour Government. Key’s rhetoric was somewhat less eloquent than Obama’s, but his message was very similar. Under Key, New Zealander’s could look forward to the recovery of our economy, a government that worked for all New Zealanders.

Both men face find themselves in very similar situations. Both are comparatively young leaders, both tasked with turning around their nations failing economy while dealing with dangerously high levels of Government debt. From a political perspective, both have just been elected to replace long time leaders, and have publics expecting a major change. Through out the rest of the year, this column is going to look at New Zealand and American Politics, and specifically how these two leaders face the challenges of their first year in office. For both men, the single most important issue at the moment is taking steps to limit the damage done by the recession, and if possible turn it around.

Obama, who came into office with a laundry list of big issues to tackle, including ending the war in Iraq and providing Universal Health Care, made economic stimulus his first major initiative. Obama’s stimulus plan was certainly an ambitious bill, calling for over 700 Billion Dollars to be spent both on infrastructure investment to stimulate further growth, and tax cuts for the middle and working class to boost consumer spending. The bill had to pass through Congress first, requiring 60 votes in the Senate before ti could be approved. Unfortunately for Obama, Democrat’s control only 58 seats, meaning that a number of moderate Republican senators had to vote for it if it was to pass.

For Obama, who made bipartisan co-operation and “changing the tone of Washington” major parts of his campaign, getting Republicans to vote in large numbers for the first major piece of his Agenda would have been a huge PR win. However getting the Republicans on board seemed to be a problem, especially when the Stimulus Bill was revealed to contain a number of big spending items that made fiscally conservative Republicans nervous.

Eventually however Obama was able to get the bill passed, but not before taking some public relations knocks. Obama has been criticised heavily by congressional Democrats, as well as his own liberal base, for allowing the debate around the stimulus bill to get out of his control. The White House was strangly silent, as Republicans filled the media with salient quotes about the spending “mortgaging our children’s future” and being to heavily focussed on low return infrastructure projects.

While the bill did eventually pass, Obama saw his approval ratings drop from the high seventies to the mid 60’s between his inauguration and the passing of the stimulus bill. Interestingly enough however, in a number of respected polls such as Gallup and Rasmussen, Obama’s lower approval ratings came from a drop in support amongst Republican voters. His election winning coalition of Independent and Democrat voters still supports him heavily, meaning that despite the hits Obama took on the stimulus, he was still able to pass one of the most expensive bills in American History while still being one of the most popular presidents in decades. One of the reason’s this might have happened is that all over the western world, voters seem to be warming to the idea of government spending.

It was only the mid 1990’s when Democratic President Bill Clinton declared “the era of big government is over”, yet it seems that in the response to the global economic crisis, voters definitely do want a big government response. This as much as anything explains why in a recent Rasmussen poll, approval ratings amongst Congressional Republicans, who opposed the stimulus, have fallen while ratings for Democrats who supported it have increased.

Here at home, John Key’s response to the economic crisis is still unfolding, with an announced job summit soon to be held to investigate ways to stem the rising rates of unemployment during the recession. However Key’s recent announced spending plan’s have been criticised for not matching the standards set by Obama and other world leaders, as a recent raft of “new” spending projects on roads and infrastructure was revealed to be spending already planned by the previous Labour Government.

 It’s early days yet, and Key has said there is more spending to come, but politically the till now relatively ineffectual Labour opposition might soon smell blood in the water if they can characterise Key as lacking in his response to the economic crisis.

It’s going to be a fun year in politics…….again.

 

 Plus, no Winston, woooooooo.

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