Presidents Don't Persuade

There is no “power to persuade” for a US president. That is the conclusion in Ezra Klein’s fascinating recent New Yorker article, drawing heavily upon data-heavy research by George Edwards of Texas A and M University.

It can come as a bit of a shock. You read it in all the textbooks; a key element in the arsenal of an American president is his power to persuade. He has a bully pulpit second to none, can command television audiences most candidates barely dream about and has probably come to the presidency in the first place because of his powers of oratorical persuasiveness. Every successful president from Theodore Roosevelt, through his distant cousin Franklin, via JFK, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, to Barack Obama, have been hailed as great speakers, articulators of their vision and persuaders of the American people.

Well, not quite. Klein describes how George Edwards, no specialist in presidential rhetoric, was nonetheless suspicious at the lack of specific evidence to back up the oft repeated claim that presidents persuade. Asked to organise a symposium on the issue, he undertook some research of his won, focusing on the “Great Communicator” himself, Ronald Reagan. Using the polling data, he discovered that Reagan consistently failed to convince the public of the need for programmes he himself favoured, whilst public support for programmes he opposed in fact increased. Not much persuasion going on there then. Only after he left office did Reagan’s reputation as the great persuader start to take hold, in defiance of the evidence.

Edwards eventually extended his research, which is admirably reviewed by Klein, and saw that Reagan was not alone. Bill Clinton, his modern rival in presidential communications, fared no better in actually persuading the American public, for all his skills as a politician. And the power to persuade doesn’t just fail to produce a resonance from the American public. In Congress, too, a president’s speechifying can harden the attitudes of the opposing party, as presidents come to be seen more and more as simply party leaders who need to be opposed.

Klein takes these arguments and looks at what it means for the presidential system of government, as well as considering what it is that really effects a president’s standing. On the former, the hardening party stances in Congress seem to effectively be ensuring a more parliamentary system, but one which is inhibited from much forward motion by the checks of separately elected power sources. Whether this is a new development is one that he also considers, looking back, for example, to FDR’s difficult mid-terms. On the issue of what effects a president’s standing – well, it may not be quite “the economy, stupid”, but it is certainly the general level of well-being that can sometimes be ersonified in the image of the man governing at the time.

In the end, presidents may not be able to persuade very much, but that is surely not going to precipitate a rush to emulate the famously silent Calvin Coolidge and stop them continuing to exercise their vocal chords on their own behalf for the duration of their presidency. After all, the one thing worse than speaking is not speaking. Even if it isn’t very persuasive.

Breitbart's Passing

Most Englishmen and women won't have heard of Andrew Breitbart and the news of his death today aged 43 will mean nothing other than exemplifying the unfortunate circumstance of a relatively young man leaving his wife and four kids suddenly without their father and husband. But Breitbart's death has received substantial coverage in America, with the Republican presidential candidates lining up to praise his 'patriotism' and 'integrity', while amongst the tweeted comments are some that are undoubtedly celebratory.

A fairly recent arrival on the media scene, but a man who pushed forward the boundaries of new media, Breitbart was a controversial figure, always determined to stir things up from his place on the right. He called Ted Kennedy a 'special pile of human excrement' when news of Kennedy's death broke, fitted up a decent, black public servant in Georgia as a racist (she wasn't - he had selectively edited the video recording of a question and answer session she was involved in and released it on his blog) and used all manner of invective to engage with his many critics. If he has had any impact at all beyond the short term, it is probably in further poisoning the waters of public discourse, especially that conducted over social media. He fitted in well with the 'Fox World' of political broadcasting.

'Wired' has a sympathetic obit here, and an earlier profile gives a measure of the man, while it's left to Andrew Sullivan, no fan of Breitbart's views, to provide perspective here. It is, finally, a measure of Mitt Romney's political integrity that this candidate for whom Breitbart is likely to have held nothing but contempt (his websites regularly ran the accusation that Romney was not a 'proper conservative') still weeps crocodile twitter tears for his passing.

UPDATE: David Frum at the Daily Beast has a good piece on Breitbart, noting that it is difficult in his case to speak only good of the dead as "It’s difficult for me to assess Breitbart’s impact upon American media and American politics as anything other than poisonous."

Sunday Verdict

I was going to grit my teeth and buy the Sun, if only to see how they coped with this new phase in their turbulent life. In the end I didn't, so can only refer everyone to what seem like intelligent and fair-minded reviews from the New Statesman's Steven Baxter and the Guardian's Roy Greenslade.

I wasn't completely devoid of tabloid enlightenment however, as I did pick up a copy of the Star on Sunday, mainly to see how the Guido Fawkes bloggers fared in their new incarnation as dead tree press columnists. And the truth is - poorly. Their blog fizzes with uncovered tales of political derring-do, points fingers all over the place, racks up a variety of evidence to keep politicos and others on their toes - even today, the day of their great columnar awakening, they've given a pretty comprehensive kicking to Ken Livingstone over his tax avoidance measures. But on paper? Bland, utterly bland. Confined to a narrow column (nothing like the spreading words of Sally Bercow - Sally Bercow for goodness sake - which covers a whole page) they have produced little to distinguish them from the likes of the lamentable Ephraim Hardcastle. A nudge-nudge piece about two un-named Labour front benchers who are really close, a diary-esque piece about David Miliband watching football in a box next to some of Cameron's Etonian mates, some tired stuff about pugilistic Eric Joyce and a typically OTT but not very interesting comment from Tory MP Desmond Swayne (or 'Dessie' as they call him). All very uninspired, the sort of stuff that eventually made Nigel Dempster such a laughing stock. I just hope for their sakes that the real reason for accepting the Desmond coin was simply to prove that the internet is far more alive with political insider news than anything that appears in a Sunday paper. Otherwise, if they want to preserve their reputation they should get out of the paper media brothel as quickly as possible.

Sunday Media Wars

I remember having a look at the last edition of the late and unlamented News of the World. Online. I couldn't quite bring myself to buy it. It was a lamentable read. I had evolved some vague notion that the demise of a newspaper was inherently a bad thing, but reading through the stories of that final NoTW and their survey of past triumphs was a depressing trawl through a litany of tawdriness and banality that had been raised to levels of shrill, trumpeted, hysterical would-be importance. It represented, it seemed to me (and I don't think I'm unduly judgmental) the apogee of humanity's lowest common denominator, and it was with a sense of relief that I reflected we would see it no more. It was, at least, one less collection of nasty, malicious pieces of paper folded into a malevolent single whole.

So forgive me for not joining in the general excitement at the Screws' resurrection tomorrow in the form of the Sun on Sunday, whose first front page exclusive concerns Amanda Holden's heart stopping for 40 seconds. Let's just remind ourselves what sort of paper it is that is about to extend its reach into Sundays. One of its former editors, and the subsequent chief executive of its parent company, was indeed briefed by police on the phone-hacking investigation that centred on her newspapers. 10 former Sun journalists have recently been arrested in a new investigation of corrupt payments to public officials by journalists. The wider realm of its parent company remains under siege too. The singer Charlotte Church has finally received a substantial payment of damages for the phone hacking she experienced - another 150 cases are said to be lining up. And the Leveson Inquiry has gradually but systematically exposed the miserable, amoral intrusions into private lives conducted by that company's papers' (and other's) reporters, to say nothing of outright lies being peddled. Meanwhile, no-one is anticipating the new Sunday paper to sell particularly well in the city of Liverpool, still smarting from its less than charitable coverage of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. Hardly a dream history for a new publication.

Even so, the launch has inevitably occasioned much publicity and, of course, wary responses from the papers who still occupy the red-top market. One of these, the Daily Star Sunday, is currently hoping that a court injunction will finally be lifted preventing it reporting on the private life of a teenage rugby player who just happens to have a cabinet minister for his mother. Hollow laughter must surely have accompanied that paper's risible claims that their story was of 'national importance'. The Daily Star Sunday hasn't hitherto been noted as a brave champion of serious investigative journalism, and this latest murky foray doesn't look as if it is going to redress the balance.

But the DSS has a further trick up its sleeve, at least for the politically knowing. They have recruited 'Guido Fawkes' as a columnist. Herein lies a supreme irony; for years the Guido Fawkes blog (originally written by former Conservative Student Paul Staines, now joined by a more recent former Conservative Student, Harry Coles) put out its snippets of gossip, libertarian rantings and investigative scoops online, regularly crowing over the demise of the 'Dead Tree Press'. Not quite so dead yet, it seems, that the canny writers of the country's premier political blog don't still want a piece of dead tree action. As a fan of the blog, though, I do wonder now what they're keeping back from their online material in order to have something fresh for one of the Porn King's Sunday titles. And can they really compete with the brilliant literary genius of Jordan, recruited for a Sun on Sunday column?

UPDATE: I mentioned above the fact that the Sun on Sunday appears to be splashing with a seriously uninteresting story about over-exposed and under-talented celeb Amanda Holden. Alastair Campbell has just tweeted his belief that this must surely be a phoney front page, with the real one emerging in the second edition.

The Republican Merry-Go-Round After Arizona

It must be difficult presenting yourself as a man of firm principles when your past political career has sadly had to see those principles compromised in the interests of 'teamwork'. That at least seemed to be Rick Santorum's problem in the latest primary debate, hosted by CNN. The current newest challenger to Mitt Romney's putative crown had a poor showing in the debate, unusually having to defend moderate actions to, of all people, the Great Inconstant himself, Romney. It's a mean debate when Mitt Romney, of all people, can have a go at you for being responsible for Obamacare (admittedly by association - Santorum once endorsed former Republican Senator Arlen Specter, who famously defected to the Democrats and helped Obamacare pass the Senate).

The website Politico has put together Santorum's "Five Fluffed Lines" in this video, and reports more broadly on the debate as a whole here. Their view that the night was Santorum's to lose - and he did - is challenged by the Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz in their round-up here. Whoever might be deemed to have 'won' or 'lost' it, however, it certainly hasn't laid the Republican nomination anywhere near to its resting place. The show goes on. Happy Mr. Obama. No wonder he allowed himself to be prevailed upon to sing a couple of blues lines!

Republicans' Right-Wing Repeating Fix

With Newt busily self-destructing, its been time for alternative right-wing darling Rick Santorum to come to the aid of the party again. Current polls show him tie-ing, or even slightly leading, the Mittmeister, as Republican activists continue their desperate search for someone, anyone, other than the safe, flip-flopping establishment choice. Because America, you see, really wants a red-blooded right-wing president who will start rolling back the evil liberalism of anti-christ incumbent Barack Obama and deal with those pesky Iranians and ally unthinkingly with the innocent much put-upon Israeli government. And that, interestingly, is exactly what the average Republican activist thought back in 1964, when another great liberal, Lyndon Johnson, was facing election as heir to the martyred Kennedy.

To get into the mood for the politics and history group's forthcoming Washington Tour, I have just started reading Rick Perlstein's much praised "Nixonland", his analysis of American politics in the era of Nixon between 1964 and 1972, and he comments thus on the Republican response to the Johnson presidency in the 1964 election year:

"The Republican Party spent the year of the liberal apotheosis enacting the most unlikely political epic ever told: a right wing fringe took over the party from the ground up, nominating Barry Goldwater, the radical right-wing senator from Arizona, while a helpless Eastern establishment-that-was-now-a-fringe looked on in bafflement."

Going on to describe the Goldwaterite ideology, and the enemies they believed they saw in common with the majority of American people (most notably the liberal 'consensus' of Johnson that was a symbol and substance of America's moral rot) he then notes the consequence:

"And so in November 1964 Lyndon Johnson won the grandest presidential victory since Franklin Delano Roosevelt's in 1936."

Now as it happens I think the Republicans will, despite themselves, nominate Establishment choice Romney as their candidate. I think they have managed such a level of fratricidal hatred that his nomination will still result in an Obama victory, although not on the scale of 2008 and possibly without a significant coat-tail effect in the two Houses of Congress. Nevertheless, Perlstein's historical point serves to suggest that the Republicans haven't lost their visceral right-wing core and that their search for another Goldwater, who might just be able to win, will continue long after the votes of 2012 have been counted. The Tea Party is merely the latest manifestation of the ground-up takeover to which the GOP now seems peculiarly subject and it won't always produce wackos and light-weights who will put off the average American voter; one day, they'll get their Goldwater ideologue with Reagan presentational skills.

What On Earth Does Murdoch Know?

He's one of the most powerful men in the western world with his Bond-villain like dominance of the media, and he hobnobs with the visible and invisible power brokers on several continents. So what is it that Rupert Murdoch knows which inspired this chilling tweet earlier today?

@rupertmurdoch Rupert Murdoch

Economic matters interesting, but shouldn't we be preparing for likely Israeli hit on Iran very soon and unknown consequences?

The Uselessness of David Miliband

I have always been of the view that, hopeless though Ed Miliband may be, his older brother, David, certainly was not deserving of the Labour leadership himself. He twice bottled the chance to pursue the leadership when it meant challenging the collapsing Brown regime, and seemed to think it was his by divine right when he did finally manage to stand. In the Telegraph yesterday Matthew Norman deploys his journalistic skills to comprehensively demolish any thought that Miliband senior is some kind of eminence grise of the left. On the tactic of making would-be challenging noises and then running away, Norman writes:

"This week, Milibandroid the Elder has mostly been playing Knock Down Ginger, and the sense of déjà vu is overwhelming. It never varies. He charges up to the door and boldly rings the bell, but at the first sound of footsteps from within, he scuttles away and hides in the bushes sucking his thumb.

The pattern was set in the summer of 2008, when David wrote a barely coded article in the Guardian – well, it wouldn’t have taxed the folk at Bletchley Park – justly lacerating Gordon Brown. The moment it was greeted as the challenge to the PM’s authority that it certainly was, off he scarpered, denying any such intent.

Within a year, his close friend and Cabinet ally James Purnell resigned, laying the ground for David to oust Mr Brown by doing the same. Again he bottled it, and stayed. Now, the former foreign secretary has exposed that giant, banana-coloured streak for a third time, by way of an article in the New Statesman, and his response to the reaction it inevitably provoked. "

Norman goes on to demolish Miliband's current article for the New Statesman. This is really David Miliband's defence of the New Labour project against Roy Hattersley, who wrote of a need to return to social democracy in the pages of Political Quarterly. Actually, the real problem of Miliband's article, in which he praises his brother's leadership on three separate occasions - just so we're clear - is that it doesn't really say anything at all. It's as woolly and all-embracing as some of Blair's finest speeches without ever striking out in a clear, coherent direction of its own. If this really is the best that the heir to New Labour can produce, then the whole project is as dead in the water as David Miliband's leadership hopes always were.

NB - There is a robust defence of social democracy by Dr. Kevin Hickson on the Fabian Society blog here.

Huhne's Fall

At the Conservative Conference that was held following the formation of the Coalition government there were many, often negative, views from delegates about the need to be in government with the Liberal Democrats. By contrast, Tory ministers, enjoying government for the first time after a long spell in the political cold, were almost falling over themselves to commend their Lib Dem partners as effective and realistic ministers. Nowhere was the love-in more apparent than amongst Tory members of the Energy and Climate Change department. Charles Hendry couldn't say enough about how excellent a minister was his new Lib Dem cabinet boss - one Chris Huhne. Which was odd in a way, given that Huhne remained arguably the most tribal, and certainly most difficult, of the new Lib Dem ministers.

But then, Huhne was not intended by nature to be an easy man to get along with. He was relentlessly awkward with the Prime Minister and his top team; his relationship with his own leader, Nick Clegg, though long-lasting seems scarcely relaxed; while the acrimonious split from his wife is the direct cause of his having to leave the cabinet today.

Easy-going people do not usually thrive in the political world, which likes and needs its prickly, difficult, mercurial, phenomenally egotistical practitioners. Huhne, after all, rose far and fast in the few years since being elected. His rhinoceros skin allowed him to keep going where other, lesse figures would have surely wilted long before now. Even today, there was an air of defiance in his resignation and a clear sense of Terminator-style "I'll Be Back".

But while Huhne departs to fight his criminal charges, and confront the ghost of his failed mariage, the coalition will continue almost seamlessly - for all the 24 hour talk about this - and Huhne will learn the lesson that so many much hailed politicians have learned before him, including one of the possibly beneficiaries of his departure, David Laws. In the relentless world of politics, no-one, absolutely no-one, is indispensible, and everyone gets forgotten more quickly than they would like. Huhne's fall is no tragedy. It is simply a common political tale. Hubris brings decline brings mortality. It's just that most politicians prefer not to think this will ever apply to them.

Where's Alistair?

Fred the Shred's had a shredding of his own, as his knighthood goes into the same bin as Mussolini and Mugabe's. But this is a rather unsatisfactory form of retribution for a man who failed big-time but didn't actually commit any felonies, as the Telegraph's Daniel Knowles argues today. Knowles highlights the Goodwin travesty effectively enough, and quotes a retired former Labour minister to make the case even more appositely. Knowles even suggests that said retiree may be the one possible putative Labour leader to put the shivers up Messrs. Cameron and Osborne. His name? Alistair Darling, the man charged by Gordon Brown with clearing up Gordon Brown's mess, and still a respected figure on the British political scene. The Conservative high command must be very thankful he is indeed retired. Isn't he?

Missing The 'West Wing'.......?

How about this for a new US TV series concept? Divorced former First Lady struggles to keep family together whilst working in the new politically hot job of Secretary of State. Who'd have thought; a former First Lady becoming SecState - the imagination churns! Well, for better or for worse, that is indeed the concept behind USA Network's projected 6-part drama "Political Animals". And yes, they did recently employ Chelsea Clinton. What would she know?

Big Bad Bonkers Newt Could Fight All The Way To The Convention

There might be worse things for Newt Gingrich than the 20-point lead the Mittmeister seems to have built up in Florida, courtesy of ad expenditure in the region of $6.8 million. But there surely aren't sadder scenes than this one, according to New York Magazine's John Heilemann -

At what was billed as a Hispanic town hall meeting at another church yesterday in Orlando, Gingrich was greeted by row after row of empty pews and maybe 40 voters in attendance. For a full hour after the scheduled starting time, Gingrich and his wife, Callista, sat outside, cloistered in his campaign bus — possibly sulking, possibly fuming at his campaign's horrid advance work, and surely praying that a few more souls would show up. When Gingrich finally entered the building, it was announced that the event was a town hall no more; the candidate would speak briefly, then take pictures with the scant few who'd turned up. And "briefly" was an understatement: Standing behind a Lucite lectern, Gingrich talked for a bare eight minutes and eleven seconds, looking deflated and exhausted. By no small margin, it was the worst and saddest campaign event that I have witnessed in this presidential cycle.

After the glory moments of South Carolina, here's Newt back on terra firma and holding out for yet another come-back. But Heilemann reckons he might decide to make a fight of it all the way to the convention, which would be a nightmare for Romney, and possibly the Republican Party. After all, Newt does nothing quietly. If Florida doesn't comprehensively bury him, he'll be up and running again soon. They love this show in the White House.

Obama's Got Balls

Bush didn't do it, Biden advised against it, and everyone knew it was a ballsy decision.

Given his independent status, the Daily Dish's Andrew Sullivan is a powerful and articulate cheerleader for Obama. Here, he reminds us that the decision to get Bin Laden would have caused the GOP to demand an extra face on Mount Rushmore if only he were a Republican. He says:

It was Obama who made that dangerous, ballsy call. It was Obama who argued in a 2008 debate with McCain that he would be prepared to ignore Pakistan and launch a raid in that country if OBL was found there and the US could get him. He was derided as "naive" and without the experience to be commander-in-chief. McCain specifically said he would not authorize such a mission.

Catch 21

Have just come across 'Catch 21', a politics site run by Hull University students. Their main focus are the videos they post featuring a range of politicos and scenarios, but their blog is a thought-provoking one. Check out the most recent articles, on the American PACs that are busy buying electoral victories for their sponsors, and the threat from French far-right leader Marine Le Pen in our favourite enemy's forthcoming presidential elections.

The 1 Million Pound Bonus Question

The MP for the City, Mark Field, wonders on a Conservative Home blog entry whether or not the eventual success of the campaign to get Stephen Hester to return his bonus is something of a pyrrhic victory. Mr. Field makes many apposite comments, not least his dislike of the unpleasant campaign of denigration waged against Mr. Hester. There was a lynch-mob mentality to it, and the ensuing media discussion was far from edifying. But there remains a question mark about the huge pay differentials in this country, and Mr. Field's concluding paragraph is scathing about the abilities of significantly more lowly paid people. He writes:

Either the government leads the way in making the case for protecting our £45 billion investment in this bank, which we so sorely hope to get back in due course. Or alternatively the only other logical option is that we write-off the entire sum pumped into RBS and from now on run it as a public utility headed by a civil servant on an established grade salary.

Wow! It could be that bad?! A "civil servant on an established grade salary"? Boy oh boy! If Mr. Field's conclusion is that ony sums in the region of £1 million or more can bring in people of real talent, then what price any form of public service, to say nothing of vast numbers of talented private sector toilers? Teachers, doctors, nurses, soldiers, sailors and airmen, civil servants - just go back to mediocre-land and exist on your sub-human salaries worthy only of such despairing lack of talent. If you're not in the million pound bracket, you're useless!

Henry VII's Birthday

It's Henry Tudor's Birthday!! Or would be, if he had possessed a sort of rarefied human longevity that matched his legendary wealth. The man who founded England's most famous and popular dynasty, the all-conquering Tudors, was born on this day in 1457. His mysterious, secretive personality, grasping acquisitiveness, extraordinarily canny political nouse and ceaseless intelligence gathering secured the throne for him in the most febrile of circumstances throughout 24 years of sinister rule. He bequeathed England his son, Bluff King Hal, and grand-daughter, Gloriana the Virgin Queen. He remains relatively unknown, but the brilliant book by Thomas Penn, "The Winter King", has come as close as anything to unravelling the secrets of the first Tudor's rule. A sort of Nixonian king who isn't particularly likeable but is endlessly fascinating.

The Right Turn on Maverick Gingrich

As if his less than stellar performance in the most recent Republican primary debate wasn't enough, it appears that a slew of right-wing media luvvies are turning against - or to be more accurate, were never really for and are now coming out publicly against - the former Speaker and pet Republican firebrand. Politico reports on the Campaign Against Newt, and also carry a fascinating report on the influence of news aggregator Matt Drudge. Drudge's site, a messy array of links, remains one of the most influential in America. He doesn't express an opinion, doesn't write an article, but his selection of links still drives readers and, presumably, views. Mind you, as one Republican aide comments at the end of the article, Drudge doesn't actually win elections for people.

Debating is The Winner In Republican Campaign

The Republican primary campaign has been a great show, and there's no doubt that one reason is the sheer number of debates between the candidates. These may not have been to the benefit of the Republican Party, but they've certainly livened up the whole campaign and placed debate back where it should be - right at the heart of democratic politics. No matter how much preparation is done, no matter how much packaging is wound round a candidate, once they get into the debating chamber they are exposed like at no other time in a campaign. Your wits, your passion and your knowledge matter. The debates certainly put paid to the campaigns of determined ignorists like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann. They allowed Newt Gingrich, despite the stretches on his finances, to come back as a front-runner. They expose Mitt Romney's hollowness. For all the rules attempting to govern them they remain politics in the raw - a clear, sometimes visceral unpealing of a candidate's carefully managed image. They are absolutely what is required in a democratic process, and they have contributed hugely to the brilliant, roller-coasting unpredictability of the Republican race.

Mitt staged his come-back of sorts with a better than normal performance in the Jacksonville debate, while his old foe Gingrich seemed subdued, out of sorts and downcast. Andrew Sullivan thinks Ron Paul and Rick Santorum had a good night and wonders if that will see yet more polling number changes. David Frum calls it for Mitt, and concludes it was a bad night for Gingrich.

There have been murmurings that the Republicans may try and change matters in four years time - too many debates have exposed the divisions and fratricidal tendencies of their party. I hope they see sense. It may be messy, but the debates are classic politics, and the end result will be to promote candidates with more wit and a nimbler grasp of their political aims and principles than anything else on offer. The change now should be for more debates in the autumn, after the primaries. As for the UK, it took us over forty years to learn from the Americans and stage debates between the leaders. They should learn a lot more quickly that debate is the warp and weft of political life, and make the next election even more debate-focussed. Only then can you really take the initiative out of the spinners' hands, and give it back to the people.

The Struggling Leaders

David Cameron can bestride the British political scene at the moment, calmly dispensing advice to other world leaders at Davos, with relatively little concern about being outmanouevred by the other party leaders. With the exception, perhaps, of Alex Salmond, and even he has had to force the pace of the Scottish Independence debate thanks to a Cameron tactical strike. But the two major English party leaders, Clegg and Miliband, are united only in the poor publicity, and hence public profile, that each has. Add in the lack of a serious opposition figure (as opposed to some of the collective opposition) within his own party, and Cameron can afford to be relaxed.

This can't last, especially not in the midst of a long and relentless recession - today's headlines about Stephen Hester's bonus show just how febrile the atmosphere actually is - but Cameron should enjoy the experience while he can. As to the other two, can they improve their position?

Nick Clegg is both the first Liberal leader in generations to be in government, but is of course similarly hidebound by that very arrangement. He has, in many respects, managed it very well, exercising real influence at the centre thanks in part to his positive relationship with Cameron, and managing to put out a distinctive Lib Dem message in more recent months. Politics Home's Paul Waugh observes the tactical success of Clegg's recent TV Sofas campaign on lower taxes for poorer earners, and it is worth emphasising that Clegg specifically, and the Lib Dems generally, have never been able to depend on any heavyweight media support. He is also a helpful lightning conductor for discouraged right-wing Tories who prefer not to attack their leader directly. Much better to direct frustration and blame towards Clegg, and never forget that the Tory media fields some very heavy, and very effective, guns in the British polity. There is an element of the old medieval tactic of not criticising the king but savaging his dispensable advisers instead. Clegg may yet emerge intact, and politically stronger, from his coalition experience if he can stay the course and keep perfecting the art of Liberal message making.

Miliband seems to be a worse case. For an opposition leader not to be making inroads at a time of economic convulsion is the sort of achievement no politician really wants to their credit. Even the Republicans have some credibility in the US political debate, and look at their cheerleaders. The latest Miliband interview, by Paul Waugh (again!) in the House magazine still shows him as strangely relaxed and optimistic, but whether his personal stoicism is enough to keep fending off grumbles from within his own party remains to be seen. If Yvette Cooper keeps sweet talking the Labour MPs, and Miliband keeps being duffed up by the bully Cameron at PMQs, no amount of zen-like relaxation will rescue him from the abyss. It must be Cameron's sincerest hope that his opposite number survives - somehow I think he'll find Cooper a far more difficult opponent both publically and in parliament. "Calm Down, Dear" only works once.

Obama's 91% Approval Rating For State Of The Union

The Republicans may be getting much of the publicity at the moment - and given the nature of it, probably very much to the White House's satisfaction - but Obama's 'coming out fighting' State of the Union address seems to have hit a strong chord with the American public, if a CBS News poll is to be believed. They give him a 91% approval rating for the speech which several right-wing commentators and politicians have slated for being too left-wing. The CBS site comments:

According to the poll, which was conducted online by Knowledge Networks immediately after the president's address, 91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved.

All excellent news for the Obama camp no doubt, although it is worth noting that the poll sample was heavily weighted towards Democrats in any case, who tended to form the majority of viewers:

Americans who watched the speech were generally more Democratic than the nation as a whole. Forty-four percent of viewers polled were Democrats and 25 percent were Republicans. (Historically speaking, that is not an unusual statistic: a president's supporters are more likely than his opponents to watch State of the Union addresses.)