Happy New Year & follow-up on the last lectures

Dear students,

I truly wish you a great 2008 and many successes both academic and personal.

Here is a last update on the primaries : a new poll from Iowa seems to indicate that the front-runners in that State are Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee whereas most of the polls had the top three Democrats and Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee in a tie. What does this mean? How can it influence caucus goers? How will it play out on the national scene? For more questions and some tentative answers visit NPR and listen to the 4 minute report. The suspense will end the day after tomorrow (January 4) when we hear about the results of the Iowa caucuses.

Here is a very interesting video offered by the New York Times : a comparison between the speeches on religion by Mitt Romney and that of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1960.

As promised during the lecture, here are a few videos from the past :

Do you remember George Bush's 1988 tax pledge?



In 1991, the excise tax on gasoline went up after a battle between Congress and the President leading to a shut down of the federal governement.
To understand how the federal governement can shut down I recommend episode 7 and 8 of The West Wing Season 5: "Separation of Powers" and "Shutdown". Of course the entire series is extremely helpful to understand American politics and political idealism.

During the 1992 presidential campaign Bill Clinton used this broken promise against George Bush who was running for a second term.


A couple months before the presidential election, the aquittal of the police officers involved in the Rodney King beating triggered massive rioting and looting in Los Angeles. Here is the news report of MAy 1, 1992.



This has inspired a lot of rappers and artists, click here to see a full list of the reference to the riots in American culture.

I have just seen Gone Baby Gone : it's an excellent movie although at times quite distressing. If you enjoyed Casey Affleck's performance in The Assassination of Jesse James by the traitor Bod Ford, you will undoubtedly like him here as well.

Best of luck for all your exams,

AM