The first round in the French presidential election is over.
Democracy won.
To start with, close to 85% of the voters went to the urns. That means that more voters cared about the result than they did in the last election in 2002.
The second good news is that most of the really silly candidates got just a few percent of the votes. For example the high profile but stark raving mad leftist José Bové got just 1.4%. And the trotskyist Arlette Laguiller, who has participated in every presidential election since 1974 got no more than 1.5%, down from an insane 5.7% in 2002. Among silly rightist candidates Philippe de Villiers got just 2.5%, and that will hopefully discourage him from continuing.
The French voters have taken a big step from silly candidates to just slightly silly candidates.
22 April 2007
17 April 2007
Between the devil and the deep blue eyes
There is a presidential election coming up very soon. It is in France.
Not very long ago I claimed I came from France. (It is a lie of course.) The reply from the nine year old who interviewed me was: "France, what is that?" And then followed a discussion whether France and Germany was the same thing or not.
For the French presidential election we all need a candidate of course. It is like watching a football match. You cannot possibly endure 90 minutes of Manchester against Watford, unless you get an opinion on who should win, so you care at least a little about where the ball rolls around on the grass.
The three possible candidates are Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolène Royal and François Bayrou. Then there are a large number of impossible candidates.
The only one I do not want to win is Sarkozy. Royal and Bayrou are wishy-washy and say what they think will get them votes. Sarkozy, already knows what will get him votes, so he says it all the time. That is what makes him dangerous. He has opinions.
Royal and Bayrou have all the wishy and washy flexibility needed to face a dynamic world, and they seem prepared to abandon any conviction they happen to have, if needed. Sarkozy may not actually have any opinions, but he is such a good actor that it seems he has strong opinions, and therefore he has to stick to them.
When the world changes, he will be unable to adapt to it, and he is doomed, and France will be doomed too.
In the end, Sarkozy is actually the only possible candidate. He is strong enough to become one of the candidates in the second round because of all the people who are blind enough to trust him. Royal may not be that strong or have that blind voters, but people will vote for her in the first round anyhow to avoid any risk that the widely (and rightly) despised Jean-Marie Le Pen will spoil the party, like he did five years ago.
And in the second round, enough people will do anything to avoid Royal's election, including voting for Sarkozy. Who unfortunately has opinions.
Not very long ago I claimed I came from France. (It is a lie of course.) The reply from the nine year old who interviewed me was: "France, what is that?" And then followed a discussion whether France and Germany was the same thing or not.
For the French presidential election we all need a candidate of course. It is like watching a football match. You cannot possibly endure 90 minutes of Manchester against Watford, unless you get an opinion on who should win, so you care at least a little about where the ball rolls around on the grass.
The three possible candidates are Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolène Royal and François Bayrou. Then there are a large number of impossible candidates.
The only one I do not want to win is Sarkozy. Royal and Bayrou are wishy-washy and say what they think will get them votes. Sarkozy, already knows what will get him votes, so he says it all the time. That is what makes him dangerous. He has opinions.
Royal and Bayrou have all the wishy and washy flexibility needed to face a dynamic world, and they seem prepared to abandon any conviction they happen to have, if needed. Sarkozy may not actually have any opinions, but he is such a good actor that it seems he has strong opinions, and therefore he has to stick to them.
When the world changes, he will be unable to adapt to it, and he is doomed, and France will be doomed too.
In the end, Sarkozy is actually the only possible candidate. He is strong enough to become one of the candidates in the second round because of all the people who are blind enough to trust him. Royal may not be that strong or have that blind voters, but people will vote for her in the first round anyhow to avoid any risk that the widely (and rightly) despised Jean-Marie Le Pen will spoil the party, like he did five years ago.
And in the second round, enough people will do anything to avoid Royal's election, including voting for Sarkozy. Who unfortunately has opinions.
Il dolce far il deadline
There was a management consultant coming to my sister's company. He gave a two hour presentation on the importance of strict deadlines in all planning.
After the presentation, everyone started defining precise deadlines in all their schedules. In less than a month it lowered the stress level a lot. If you set up a deadline and miss it, then you can forget about that task and start waiting for another task to come up.
After the presentation, everyone started defining precise deadlines in all their schedules. In less than a month it lowered the stress level a lot. If you set up a deadline and miss it, then you can forget about that task and start waiting for another task to come up.
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