On Climate And The Dangers Of The Politics Of Personality - Guardian

[hatrack]

EDIT

The film leaves a more direct political thought. You watch and you curse the single vote on the US supreme court that denied this man - passionate, well-informed and right - the presidency of the United States in favour of George W Bush. You realise what a different world we would live in now if just a few hundred votes had gone to Al Gore (rather than, say, Ralph Nader) that fateful day.

But you also remember what that election turned on. The conventional wisdom held that Gore and Bush were so similar on policy - Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, the pundits said - that the election was about personality. On that measure, Bush had the edge. Sure, he couldn't name any world leader, but the polls gave him a higher likeability rating. If you had to have a beer with one of them, who would you choose? Americans said Bush, every time.

Even that was not enough to give Bush a greater number of votes: remember, Gore got more of those. But it got him closer than he should have been. And the world has been living with the consequences ever since.

Perhaps Britons should bear that in mind at our next election. If the choice is between David Cameron and Gordon Brown - and, given the events of last week, that is now a serious if - then polls will show, as they have already, Cameron ahead on the affability index. Brown, like Gore before him, will seem stiff, unnatural, oddly robotic, a creature of 24/7 politics, unable to speak fluent human. Cameron, like Bush, will be charming and easy. He won't make odd grimaces when he speaks.

But we should ask ourselves: is this any basis for choosing a leader? Surely we should choose the man of substance, no matter how he looks in a fleece or how breezily he can talk about his iPod. America made that mistake already and we are all paying the price. Let's not repeat it.

EDIT/END

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1871094,00.html

[PaulaFarrell]

1. well, Cameron seems to genuinely care about the environment

Don't think Brown has mentioned it. I wouldn't normally support Tories but if Cameron would actually walk the talk he's been making I might consider it(although I can't vote here so it's academic). But here's the Guardian trying to make like Brown's the environment guy. Nothing agianst Brown but I've not heard one peep from him about the environment. This is why I quit reading the Guardian. They will support Labour even if the policies being espoused are totally contradictory to everything they stand for.