More Palin revelations

Sarah Palin 'did not know Africa was a continent', say aides

Sarah Palin spent "tens of thousands" more than the quoted $150,000 on clothes for the Republican campaign, met McCain aides in her hotel room dressed in nothing but a towel, and did not know Africa was a continent, according to new reports.

Fox news has reported that Mrs Palin did not understand that Africa was a continent, not a country, and did not know what countries were in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In separate claims made in the latest issue of Newsweek magazine, the Republican vice presidential nominee was reported to have been told to buy three suits for the Republican convention, and to hire a stylist. Instead, she went on a spending spree in upmarket stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

Quoting unnamed sources within the McCain camp, the magazine alleges that most of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who "was shocked when he got the bill."

An angry aide described the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast", and predicted that the truth would eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

The magazine also claimed that Mrs Palin used low ranking staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards, and that up to $40,000 was spent on clothes for her husband Todd.

A number of articles of clothing have been lost, the magazine states.

The disclosures are made in "How He Did It, 2008", in Newsweek's Special Election Project, a behind-the-scenes account of the presidential election produced the day after the polls closed.

The magazine also claims that at the GOP convention in St. Paul, when aides Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her, Ms Palin walked into the room wearing only a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat to Todd, adding: "I'll be just a minute."

Other election revelations include that on the night Hillary Clinton officially lost the Democratic nomination, she enjoyed a long and friendly phone conversation with McCain.

"Clinton was actually on better terms with McCain than she was with Obama," reports the magazine. "Clinton and McCain had downed shots together on Senate junkets; they regarded each other as grizzled veterans of the political wars and shared a certain disdain for Obama as flashy and callow. "

Source: The Times

Listen to the telephone conversation between Palin and (who she thought was) Sarkozy.

Before she is confined to the dustbin of history; here is one more chance to admire the interview skills and the foreign policy credentials of Sarah Palin.

Secret opinion polls

Poll puts Zapatero ahead (but don't tell the Spanish)

Spain's Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is set to clinch re-election on Sunday by a narrow margin, according to the results of a poll commissioned by The Times.

Conducted by the Spanish polling firm Sigma Dos, the latest survey shows Mr Zapatero's Socialist Party beating its conservative rivals by 3.8 percentage points. That result would give the Socialists enough seats in Parliament to form a Government, but short of an absolute majority.

Spanish media are barred from publishing opinion polls in the five days leading up to the election, but political parties and business groups continue to commission them. The results are traded widely among political and business elites but until now, have been kept from ordinary Spaniards.

Several Spanish media outlets, including the newspaper El Periódico de Catalunya, are now campaigning for an end to the “obsolete” law, introduced in the 1980s with the argument that polls could influence voters.

“The ban on publishing polls is a clear limitation on freedom of expression, unworthy of a solid democracy such as ours,” the newspaper said in a front page editorial today. The newspaper has decided to publish its own polls from a website in Andorra, just beyond the Spanish border, giving the Socialists a 3.4 point lead.

The Times poll was conducted yesterday after the second of two ill-tempered television debates between the Prime Minister and Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing Popular Party. In four hours of heated debate that drew record audiences, the candidates clashed over the worsening economy, rising immigration and anti-terrorism policy.

For the past four years, Mr Rajoy has excoriated the Spanish leader for his ill-fated efforts to negotiate a peace deal with Eta, the violent Basque separatist group, accusing him of “surrendering to terrorists”. The theme has played well with the Popular Party's supporters but failed to win over enough converts to win the election.

Mr Rajoy has changed tack during the campaign, focusing on Spain's stalling growth, rising prices and, above all, immigration. The Times poll suggests that at least one of Mr Rajoy's key proposals — to force immigrants to sign a contract stating that they will abide by Spanish laws and customs — has connected with voters in Spain. Sixty-two per cent of respondents said they would support such a proposal while just 26.4 per cent rejected it.

The Spanish Government has blasted Mr Rajoy's plan as xenophobic and redundant: immigrants must already abide by Spanish law, it points out, and even those born in the country would have a hard time agreeing what “Spanish customs” are. But in private, Socialist Party officials worry that the high rate of immigration in the past few years could cost it votes on Sunday.

With the influx of immigrants, Spain's once-dwindling population has jumped from 40 million to 45 million since 2000, boosting the economy but creating tensions in working-class, urban areas where many immigrants have settled.

The economy has been another source of worry for Socialist Party strategists after four years of strong growth. New unemployment figures showed this week that 53,000 Spaniards lost their jobs in February, taking the overall unemployment rate to 8.6 per cent. The Spanish manufacturing sector is also at its weakest in more than six years.

Mr Zapatero swept to power unexpectedly four years ago on a wave of public anger over the previous Government's handling of the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and injured more than 1,800. The conservative Government of José María Aznar tried to pin the outrage on Eta, despite mounting evidence that it was the work of Islamic radicals. Analysts say it was punished by voters who would not normally have gone to the polls.

This time around, the challenge for the Socialists has been to motivate those voters again to support it at the polls. According to the Sigma Dos poll, they have managed to motivate supporters by playing-up fears of a Popular Party government. Turnout is projected to be about 75 per cent of the electorate, only slightly below the 77 per cent in 2004.

“The highly polarised campaign has succeeded in galvanising voters,” said Carlos Malo de Molina, head of Sigma Dos. “The uncertainty over the final result is also driving them to the polls.”

Source: The Times

General Election

The General Election campaign officially starts on Friday but I'm a bit fed up of politics already.

What are the factors that you consider when deciding which party to vote for? Why? Do you think it is important to vote? Do you already know which party you will vote for or will the campaign help you make up your mind? DON'T REVEAL WHICH PARTY YOU SUPPORT!

Spanish PM faces voters' verdict

If the US election is a marathon, Spain's is a sprint.

The official starting-gun for campaigning will be fired on Friday, barely two weeks before voters go to the polls on 9 March.

In between, Spaniards will be treated to two televised debates, along with 30-second chunks of television advertising - barely enough time for a Spanish politician to say "vote for me".

But as Spaniards are acutely aware, the outcome of even the shortest sprint can be transformed in the final yards.

Last time, as 11 March 2004 dawned, the governing Popular Party (PP) had the winning line in sight. But within hours, 191 lives had been claimed by an Islamist terror attack.

Three days later the PP was voted out of office, after wrongly blaming the Madrid train bombings on the Basque separatist group, Eta.

In some ways, the 2008 general election campaign is a straight replay.

The party leaders are the same as in 2004, the threat from Basque and Islamist militants continues, and the PP has loudly and indignantly prolonged the debate over its response to 11 March.

Eta controversy

In January, a police swoop on an alleged Islamist terror cell in Barcelona refocused attention on homeland security.

In the same month, the governing Socialist Party (PSOE) admitted to having maintained secret contact with Eta, even after the gunmen broke a ceasefire in December 2006.

Terror will always be an election issue in Spain, and a fatal attack would once again transform the campaign.

But increasingly, the 2008 campaign seems destined to be decided somewhere more obvious - in voters' pockets.

After a remarkable 14 consecutive years of growth, the Spanish economy is showing signs of fatigue.

Having long outpaced France, Germany and Britain, Spain's GDP growth will fall below the EU average by the end of 2009, according to the European Commission.

At 4.4%, inflation is at a 10-year high, while January's unemployment figures were the highest for eight years.

With a decade-long housing boom also spluttering to a halt, the opposition is suddenly keener to talk economics, rather than Eta.

Missed opportunity

For Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, it is a case of bad timing.

Over his four-year term, he can point to impressive average annual growth of 3.6%, and claim to have created three million new jobs.

Today, Spaniards are wealthier than their Italian counterparts.

As recently as September, the prime minister boasted that in the Champions League of global economies, Spain had "won the most games".

In retrospect, the manager should probably have called an election back in the autumn, while his team was still winning.

Mr Zapatero's supporters stress the transformational nature of his premiership, under the slogan: "reasons to believe".

Marketed simply as "Z", he is billed as an enlightened leader for the 21st Century - a man who pushed through gay marriage, fast-track divorce and greater workplace rights for women, together with a law explicitly condemning the repression of the Franco years.

Church steps in

Such in-your-face liberalism has provoked criticism from Spain's still-influential Catholic Church.

In January, the Spanish Bishops' Conference released a statement arguing that "not all (electoral) programmes are equally compatible with faith and the demands of Christian life".

In a thinly veiled attack on the government's contacts with Eta, the statement also stressed that a "terrorist" organisation could not be considered a "political interlocutor".

Responding, Mr Zapatero made great play of complaining to the papal nuncio in Madrid.

But privately, PSOE activists relished the confrontation as an opportunity to portray the campaign as a battle between the forces of progress and reaction.

Linking Spain's bishops to the opposition, Mr Zapatero told one newspaper: "the most right-wing elements in the Church... already call the shots in the PP, and they want to call the shots in Spain".

On the right, the PP's campaign appears designed to energise its conservative base.

Party leader Mariano Rajoy has come out against adoption by gay couples, and proposed that immigrants sign a contract with the Spanish state, promising to integrate with local customs and to go home if they do not find a job.

The PP website excitedly informs us that Mr Rajoy listens to The Police, and enjoys watching the DVD of Back to the Future, a title which aptly sums up the party's election mindset.

Many senior PP figures feel that they were cheated of certain victory in 2004, and that Mr Zapatero's win - courtesy of a destabilising terror attack - upset the natural order of Spanish politics.

Close race

Spain's notoriously hit-and-miss opinion polls still put PSOE marginally ahead, but the lead has narrowed and smaller leftist and regional parties may well hold the balance of power in parliament.

Much will depend on turnout: in 2004, an unusually high level of participation after the train bombings helped propel the PSOE to its surprise win.

But historically, the PP has been more effective at getting its core supporters to the polls.

Against the backdrop of a faltering economy, the key question is: will Spaniards who indignantly turned to Mr Zapatero four years ago feel similarly motivated to back him today?

Source: BBC News

Election Spain Podcast Here you can listen to me reading the article above. I feel like a newsreader and occassionally stumble over my words. Still, it is my first attempt!