Question for real anoraks of politics
Change is in the air in Washington. As I'll be exploring on Thursday for Newsnight, it's the buzz word for Barack Obama (just as it was for Gordon Brown when he ran for the Labour leadership last year), but also a theme for John McCain - to the extent of parody in both cases.
It's the first year since 1976 that neither a Bush nor a Clinton has been on either of the main tickets (though Hillary almost got there).
And remarkably 2008 has been the first presidential race since goodness-knows-when which has not been contested by either the sitting President, nor the incumbent Vice President.
But what year exactly was "goodness-knows-when"?
Think hard.
It's a surprisingly long time ago, and the answer's not as simple as you might think. I certainly got it wrong when an anorak friend posed the question a few weeks ago.
I'm Michael Crick, and I'm Newsnight's political editor. My guiding rule is that in any story there's usually something the politicians would prefer the world not to know. My job is to find that out. Follow me on
Comment number 1.
At 20th Oct 2008, cmonsaintmirren wrote:1952
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Comment number 2.
At 20th Oct 2008, alanskillcole wrote:at a guess, just after Truman and before Eisenhower.
So, 1952.
After, there's VP Nixon vs Kennedy...
(LBJ dropped out)...
Nixon vs VP Humphrey...
VP Ford vs Carter...
Reagan vs Carter...
VP Bush vs Dukakis/Dole(which was first?)...
Clinton vs Bush...
VP Gore vs Bush, etc...
now
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Oct 2008, JunkkMale wrote:As the top story link (oh, surprise, all about the US election) gives an error, I guess I'll post here instead.
Nothing to do with this topic, but as I have resigned myself to nothing about the UK cropping up any time soon I popped across to a blog by one Nick Robinson, and got to this...
'...What's more, Gordon Brown, fresh from taking the plaudits for saving the world's financial system, is busy laying a new trap for the Tories. He's pledging to carry on spending and borrowing in the downturn...'
Plus a few hundred comments.
At which point I wondered if he was actually laying it out, heavy with irony, for the audience as we are all too thick, or whether it really is better to lay traps and stuff for the opposition and get the glee club cheering rather than help the country get back on an even keel.
Hard to tell these days.
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Comment number 4.
At 20th Oct 2008, GlobalTemplar wrote:why are we talking about the US when Brown's reckless rabble have been borrowing more cash since records began in 1946? We have prudence on a spread and no idea where or when the spending and borrowing will come to an end? Labour are so far from their manifesto now on tax and spend it really should be election time so the British people can decide if we want to go down the route of spend until we are owned outright by the Chinese or Arabs or if we want to tighten our belts and tough it out? Brown must go to the nation soon and stop this outragous spending that he knows will carry on well past the next election! Now Newsnight you can return to your promote Obama campaign!
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Comment number 5.
At 21st Oct 2008, barriesingleton wrote:THE AGE OF MEME CHOSE (#4)
No change there then. Speaker (Batman) Martin declares: answers to questions are not a matter for him. This must mean that 'holding the government to account' in the final analysis, is impossible. (Not unlike sending each elected MP to the 'crease' with a broken bat - what?)
No one of sensibility and integrity could possibly put up with the Westminster charade AND SAY NOTHING. Hence MPs of all parties are, manifestly, found wanting or just self-serving. Their code of conduct (qv - do they sign it?) pays lip-service, at best, to the dupes who vote them to Parliament. And there they sit, playing their time-dishonoured games, and making a consummate, expensive mess of just about everything that Westminster touches. Just think how low taxation would be if governance was competent!
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