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WHEN BARACK OBAMA ended his State of the Union address last month, he marked the beginning of his last year as President that doesn’t have an election.
Once 2016 gets underway, Obama will become an increasingly marginalised figure in US politics, as the election circus ramps up.
Campaigns for the candidacy of both the Democratic and Republic parties will kick into gear in earnest after this Christmas, with both set to crown their nominees officially in July.
However, the road to the White House is not a short one. Already, interested candidates are forming exploratory committees or public action committees (PACs) to fund-raise and plan for a tilt at the role of world’s most powerful man or woman.
With Obama and Mitt Romney’s campaigns spending over $1 billion between them in 2012, some time is needed to gather coins. But who is going to be on the ballot?
The party who hold the office always seem to be going from a standing start in years when the President has to be replaced (America has an eight-year term limit), which is unsurprising.
The party is focused on attempting to govern, key campaign staff are either burned out from previous campaigns or employed in the White House and there is a tacit agreement to hold off on campaigning while the sitting President is still working on an agenda.
Which means that the Democrats have done less positioning and manoeuvring than the Republicans – at least in public. Here are the possible competitors in the primary race:
Joe Biden
The general feeling about Vice Presidents is that if, at the end of an eight-year term, they want to run, they should be given, or will have, a clear run at the nomination.
That’s not the feeling around Biden.
He will be 74 when the next election comes around and, having lost primary campaigns in 1988 and 2008, it is not known if he wants another battle.
He can be gaffe-prone, but he is hugely popular with the party’s liberal wing: he supports same sex marriage, renewable energy, student loan forgiveness, and universal health care, while he opposes Arctic drilling, increases to defence spending and doesn’t feel his beliefs on abortion should impact on legislation.
He’s from a state – Pennsylvania – that has emerged as a battleground in recent years and can help the Keystone State’s 20 electoral college votes stay blue.
For Biden, the issue is how much he wants to take on a bruising primary and a Presidential election.
Hilary Rodham Clilnton
You may have heard of her.
The former Secretary of State and New York Senator is in the ring and putting her gloves on, despite any attempts to make it seem otherwise.
The party loves her, she has a high-profile name and massive support from political donors. Opponents will attack her over her husband’s affairs and the Benghazi attacks which led to the deaths of four Americans in Libya.
But 57% of Americans weren’t closely following hearings on that incident last year and Clinton remains a hugely popular figure.
Elizabeth Warren
The Massachusetts senator is gaining momentum for a tilt at Hilary, offering a liberal option for the party.
Many see the campaign for her to run as an attempt to push Clinton to take on Wall Street and big business.
She said before Christmas that she won’t run and a liberal academic woman from Massachusetts winning the Presidency is a tough scenario to envisage.
Martin O’Malley
Yes, he’s Irish.
And Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, whose ancestors hail from the west, is emerging as a viable alternative to Clinton.
He’s ambitious, liberal, likeable and is staunchly allied to Barack Obama.
He made nearly 200 campaign stops with Democrats in last year’s mid-terms so will be popular on campaign stops. But is he well known enough?
Despite being part inspiration for The Wire’s Tommy Carcetti, he lacks national profile.
May be a VP candidate.
Brian Schweitzer
In 2008, Barack Obama got 47% of the vote in Montana.
On the very same day, Schweitzer took 65% of the vote as he was elected governor for Big Sky Country.
He can woo undecideds, loves guns, will attract conservatives and would give the Democrats a strong chance at winning Georgia, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The problem is that he may not energise the party the way Obama did in 2008, with his stance on carbon, guns and spending.
Others to watch: Deval Patrick, Mark Warner, Andrew Cuomo, Howard Dean
The Republican manoeuvring has already begun, with people quitting jobs at news stations and declaring themselves out already.
Jeb Bush
You know the name.
He will appeal to moderates, should carry Florida and has a massive national profile with two ex-Presidents on speed dial.
He’s putting together an impressive team and will have the party’s establishment behind him.
But his surname could be politically toxic and the Tea Party don’t like his views on healthcare or immigration.
Marco Rubio
Young, good-looking, Hispanic and from a key state (Florida).
In 2012, Rubio was the GOP’s silver bullet, a man who would make them popular in the cities as well as the deltas and plains.
Since then, his momentum has stalled entirely.
A recent poll put him in 10th place in New Hampshire, one of the first states to vote for the nominee.
Some see him as having become caught in between the Republican party establishment and the Tea Party.
Rand Paul
Son of libertarian hero Ron Paul, Rand is popular among a huge cohort of Republicans.
However, he is a maverick.
He is against military intervention abroad, wants states to decide on gay marriage and wants congress to be term-limited.
His Senate seat is also up in 2016 and Kentucky doesn’t allow people be on two ballots at once.
Is he willing to go all in with time still on his side?
Chris Christie
The New Jersey governor was seen as the kingmaker in 2012, with all candidates courting his endorsement.
The Romney camp were terrified of him running because he was seen as a many who could beat not only Mitt, but Obama.
Since then, a controversy over a bridge has seen his momentum stall. He holds just around 7% support at the minute.
John Kasich
Governor of an important state (Ohio), Kasich has long been thought an outsider.
However, this week he started meeting with key Republicans and booked a trip to South Carolina (an important state in the Republican primaries) and Mitt Romney thinks he can win.
A decent dark-horse bet.
Others to watch: Bobby Jindal, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz
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I grew up in USSR and we had DIY lessons in school, I can confirm – most of the skills I use all the time in my life after that, must have!
For “cold war” fans – I also learned in school how to throw a grenade and what to do in case of a nuclear strike :)
Sh*t, you played with hand grenades and we learned about Peig!
Our sex education included elements of DIY…
… literally “daddy then puts his plug into mammy’s socket”.
I would agree but their is people who haven’t the hands to bless them selfs with.
I remember in our Home Ec book there was a basic ‘How to Wire a Plug’ type section. Can’t hurt teaching these basic skills in school. Take away one of the Religion classes for it.
Do people now believe that if they have a go at religion everytime they open their mouths that they are somehow making some kind of comment that is intelligent or what. It is the new sheeple activity….lemmings
No Sheelagh, but replacing the teaching of it in schools is a valid opinion these days.
I remember that. It came in handy there a couple of months ago.. a good 15 years later!
@Hanley I was not picking on Religion classes just for the sake of picking on religion. I only suggested them be used because in a lot of schools they are used as free classes or study periods. I had three a week when I was in school and it would have been beneficial for myself and my classmates to take one of those classes and be taught how to change a tire or something to that effect. It wouldn’t have spoiled my religious education if I had two instead of three classes a week.
It certainly would be more useful than imposed irish!
Forced Irish! No choice but to ‘learn’ it.
I am pretty sure i had no choice in any of my subjects until Second Level.
They should teach basic computer maintenance too, along with the importance of/how to set your privacy settings.
Keyboard typing lessons (touch typing) would be also handy.
YouTube :)
Start by teaching them how to change a wheel. lol
This should be part of the driving test, if you can’t chance the wheel of your car then you can’t pass the test
Get rid of ALL religion classes and replace them with useful, practical things such as DIY. That’s how we save this country. Get on it!
Needs to be a separate “How to change wiper blades class”, especially for Halfords staff.
I think there has been what I call a “soft push” for people not to do things themselves. It has been viewed as good for the economy to phone someone else ie. a professional. I phone someone to install a dishwasher for example. They charge e100 to do the job. There’s a tax due right there. Their company takes 60% of the remainder while the man gets his 40% and both pay tax on that. Because we don’t trust anybody, we require this man to be certified to do this right in case it all goes pear-shaped, so that means he had to go to to school. There’s teachers get paid who pay tax…………….You see where this is going. Imagine if I go buy a few washers and a spanner and do it myself. Maybe I’ll teach my kids how to do this too. I could get in trouble!!
having been to many “diy experts” houses to put right their own attempts at small wiring jobs. i would imagine that a fair amount of those people saying they have a knowledge of diy possibly have a toolbox with a few tools and as a result consider themselves to be experts. if your not sure leave it to the pros. hope its not taught in schools for selfish reasons it would mean less handy jobs for me.
How many professional electricians are competent to use an oscilloscope for measuring timing of contact bounce/ release times of contacts. Or using generic meters to test rather than one click machines. Many DIYers are very capable. Of course some know their limitations. I have met loads of professional electricians who don’t understand peak, rms, power factor, and j notation, capacitive and inductive circuits etc. Few electricians would know how to measure peak voltage with an ordinary moving coil meter calibrated for rms. Few know the effect of using too high an input impedence meter on a dead cable when testing before working on.
@Aurfur 99.99% of domestic electrical call outs would never need any of what you mentioned.
only speaking from personal experience but then i don’t suppose those who are genuine need a sparks to fix it. Fas syllabus has everything you mention in it and if you know the theory and maths behind electricity an rms meter is all you need to get peak.
If you want to test a residual current breaker, or test a capacitor (well pumps) and subsequently change it you need to understand peak and rms values and how to use generic test gear. Also need to understand how to calculate capacitance in series and parallel if the correct value is not to hand on a call out. Whilst we are on that subject adjusting relay tension, follow through and residual gaps all come into play on switch gear for pumps. Surely the object of a competent person is to safely restore service to non working equipment as soon as possible.
I saw a professional electrician test a dead cable with a 10 Mohms per volt input impedance meter and then couldn’t understand why he had a 100 volt reading on it. I lent him a 20 Kohm per volt analogue meter and suggested he try that. He never understood why he now had a zero reading but was happy to then work on the cable.
Finally if a boiler doesnt work you can’t just change the boiler you need to be able to test which component is faulty before disconnecting and repairing or replacing.
Pauline K
True you can calculate peak from rms and vice versa, but to actually measure peak with an rms calibrated multimeter you have to make up some circuitry. Square root of two and reciprocal of root two only apply to pure sine waves. With modified waveforms found in inverters there might be some uncertainty. Certainly most analogue meters with the exception of moving iron meters are calibrated to measure full sine waves at rms and within some frequency limitations. Hence a half wave rectified non smoothed interface would give a false rms reading, and if smoothed would read peak even if not a sine wave, provided the components used were suitably chosen. And to be correct if making up an interface to measure peak the losses in the components would need also to be taken into account.
Have to admit though, nothing like a recession to force you to learn these skills. Only yesterday I replaced the Alternator on my car, I still feel a little glow of achievment! I think it would be an excellent idea to teach it in schools along with basic cookery skills and diet advise. Youtube is a great resource of knowledge for these things, and you can have it on your smartphone or PC tab while you do it!
I learned most of this stuff myself as a kid from doing it myself or from the oul lad. What’s happened to kids who now have better access to the info? Too mollycoddled that’s the problem.
It amuses me what people don’t know what to do, and pay people to do for them
- Bleed rads
- Bleed oil boilers (seriously easy to do!)
- Replace a plug socket (also very very easy)
- Wire a plug (seriously)
- Wire a light socket (again also seriously easy)
And yet people pay other people to do these very easy things…the bleeding a oil boiler is as easy as bleeding a rad in fairness,
Interesting points!! Now when the person adjusts the oil pump pressure instead of bleeding the oil pump on a Riello G3b what happens or when they bleed the radiators and it drops the system pressure so much the circ pump cavitates and the boiler shuts down what do you do?
Call a plumber? You wouldn’t know any would ya Thomas? ;)
Make sandwich (easy) but i still go to subway;)
Buy a gauge, bleed the fuel, look at the pump manual, follow fault finding flow chart and reset procedure. Adjust pressure to manufacturers settings.
Recharge the primary water system with the filling loop to about 1bar. Get system going and calculate correct running pressure for system and size of pressure vessel.
How many plumbers over here fit a micronic filter to the fuel supply and a capillary fuel cut off outside the building with internal and external manual fuel shut off valves as per most boiler manufacturers manuals.
Sorry forgot wont have to buy a pressure gauge or smoke pump or gas analyser as I already got them in my tool box some years ago. Competent DIYer.
Parents are the primary educators of a child-let them learn DIY in the home!
Leave it to us teachers lads. We can shows kids how to wire plugs, fix tyres, drive cars and throw grenades in between solving all the ills of society from drunkness to morality, and teach, all at the same time.
Agree. Let teachers teach.
Getting teachers to teach DIY is like parents abdicating responsibility for teaching menial tasks which should be taught at home.
No one should leave high school with learning to drive. Seems crazy not to have that as part of the curriculum. Learning to wire a plug, change a tap, fix a puncture – where do you stop with basic DIY?
I work in the community centre where I live and we are offering a DIY class for €10 for 10 weeks not beyond anyone’s means especially if it saves them any money long term.
Very reasonable and good on you
FFS, this is DIY. Let the teachers teach. Mums and dads should teach kids how to do DIY. A teacher has no business doing this.
but if there is a gap in the passing on of these life skills then somewhere along the way it needs to be taught. I think most people point out that maybe as part of the TY programme not everyday teaching.
Don’t need classes Plenty of DIY books and DVDs out there for basics. Anyway most people are struggling so can’t afford classes
I learned how to change plugs in school, we did all that stuff in Home Economics.
Bleeding a radiator is simple?? What happens when you bleed your radiator and the system pressure drops so much the boiler shuts itself down? Why is there air in the radiator in the first place? How did it get in there? It didnt magically appear! How many times can you bleed the radiators before you cause serious damage to your system? And they said it was easy! The act is easy the consequences and reasons might not be so easy hence the experienced professional!
Pressure drop? You must have some sort of a gague (manometer) somewhere in your hotpress or around boiler where you can see current pressure and add more water from the mains using tap provided to increase the pressure. Pretty simple thing, there must be even some sort of a red arrow which points to the safe limit value, just keep adding water until black arrow reaches red one. If you do not have red arrow, no problem : usually safe limit is about 1,5 or 2 bar. Rocket science?
Agreed and then you clear the leak from the potential fault that the plumber left some years ago cos either he didn’t solder the joints properly and clean up afterward, or the compression joints weren’t tightened properly. How many plumbers can lead weld (burn) and know how to solder lead today.
We’ve had or view shifted to view many things as disposable and replaceable rather than repairable. Repair a mobile phone? Repair a Playstation. Even Sony have a policy of replacing rather than repairing returned units. It’s no wonder we don’t fix things ourselves anymore. Those ” warranty is void if opened/removed” stickers are not exactly or emoting self repair. Fixed my washing machine last month, after a mammoth amount of calls to get a repairman out ( still under warranty ). Gave me a big old jolt of masculine pride…
basic cooking skills should be taught too, everyone eats. everyone should be able to prepare simple meals for themselves. I have spoken to loads of people who live on take away because of total inability to cook for themselves, could this be part of the obesity problem.
On a similar note I had someone out to look at my dishwasher as its been playing up and I was told the part would be more expensive than a new machine white goods aren’t designed to last anymore.
Helena,
With the greatest of respect but if someone cannot cook a simple meal, it is due entirely to laziness or personal choice, not inability.
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