No, there’s still a huge block of apathetic voters out there. Which is a worry.

The mayoral election turnout was only up about 8% on 2004, and the Crewe and Nantwich by-election turnout (58%) was LOWER than the 2005 general election (60%). Labour voters are staying at home while Conservatives are voting in larger numbers, but that doesn’t equate to inspiring a nation which Obama is doing quite brilliantly.

Quite. But IT IS happening here. Look at voter turnout in the London and Local elections. Even a By-Election saw nearly 50%.

So Obama inspires but he is also picking up those Republicans who can’t believe the situation that their leaders have led them too. The same applies here.

People I know, who have never voted and are now 25- 35 years old jumped at the chance to vote in the London Elections. Professional people, with busy schedules took time out to vote because, for once ,they thought it would make a difference.
And they were right.

The parallel I would draw is that Cameron and Obama are both faced with cynical electorates who have grown tired of being lied to, misled and ignored. For them to win an election in spite of this considerable obstacle would represent an amazing achievement.

Again this is another problem that David Cameron is facing. Imagine the fallout for the Tories is, by some extraordinary chance, they managed to lose the election. Cameron would be unceremoniously ousted, since government had been his for the taking, and cue another 10 years of Conservatives-as-outcasts. The Lib Dems might even win after that.

I’m not sure where it was that I read the assertion that Labour and the Conservatives have both been falling completely to pieces for 30 years (or longer) and it was only the sheer willpower first of Thatcher then of Blair (and now of Cameron) that’s kept UK politics from shattering for so long. I think this is correct, though – the default stat for a political party must be chaos, turmoil and divided in-fighting, kept at bay only when a devoted and inspirational leader takes the helm once a generation.

As for “vapid rhetoric”, this is an accusation which says far more about the accuser than the accused. It only seems like vapid rhetoric because Labour and Blair were so astonishingly poor at following through on their ideas. Now Labour are saying that their own vapidity is somehow inevitable in all political discussion – the triumph of the cynical age.

Did you mean ‘further apart’…?

I see that Stu is finding this out now. The comparison with Cameron is interesting. I’ve read quite a bit about Cameron and I respect him more than you might think, though I remain a sceptic about what he actually will do.

Secondly, I think Obama is teetering on a knife-edge and in a very dangerous position. I wrote a blog post on the subject, but it boils down to my assertion that if he loses the presidential election it will tear the democrats apart.

http://sic.phantom-rouge.co.uk/2008/06/05/barack-obama-holds-the-future-in-his-hands/

I think it really is time for a change like Obama says it is, though. It seems to me that his ideas are sound for the most part, and he’s a decent and genuine man. Funnily enough, I think there are plenty of parallels with David Cameron, but Obama is undoubtedly the more confident and inspirational of the two.

asquith, I’m reading The Audacity of Hope at the moment. It’s an interesting read, and he’s an excellent writer. It sort of sets out a general approach, though, without ever getting bogged down in the specifics of policies. I take issue with his chapter on faith, though – particularly he implies that his mother must have been Christian despite her professed atheism, because she was kind and compassionate. He seems to believe that people capable of being nice to each other must be intrinsically religious by definition. A very strange point of view, if you ask me.