London's Conservative mayor endorses Obama

[sabra]

Source: AP

LONDON (AP) — The mayor of London, a member of the British political party that is a traditional ally of U.S. Republicans, says Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "visibly incarnates change and hope, at a time when America desperately needs both."

In an article for Tuesday's edition of The Daily Telegraph newspaper, London Mayor Boris Johnson of the center-right Conservative Party was blunt in his assessment of President Bush's legacy and how an Obama presidency would break from it.

Johnson's endorsement of the Democratic candidate came after McCain declared in a radio address Saturday that "socialist leaders" in Europe admire Obama. The Republican candidate has likened Obama's tax policies to socialism.

Criticizing the Bush administration, Johnson called the invasion of Iraq "catastrophic" and said the economic crisis had forced the U.S. government into a "humiliating resort to semi-socialist solutions."

Read more: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iglfCvhnvKPxSS-en_G792_tkXhQD93V171G0

[La Lioness Priyanka]

1. watch them spin him as a "socialist european"

meanwhile in reality he is a hardcore capitalist

[jb5150]

2. How many electoral votes

does London have? Just wondering. :rofl:

[whopis01]

3. They have quite a few actually -

The thing most people don't realize is that their delegates don't get to cast their vote until February 30th.

[14thColony]

4. Interesting...

Just a few months ago Boris was telling the Republicans how they had to stay the course and really hammer their message home to win in November - giving them a real pep talk in the papers. Now it appears he's given up hope and gone with Obama. Of course even the more right-wing members of the Conservatives here would be considered RINOs by the crazy wing of the US Republican Party.

[nxylas]

6. Reminiscent of Jon Stewart's joke about the Canadian election

"Their Conservative Party would be the equivalent of our Gay Nader Fans for Peace".

[Judi Lynn]

5. Oh, it's the NEW Europe that matters! n/t

[yellowcanine]

7. Take that George Will! Will is an Anglophile and loves the Tories..

He used to cream his pants whenever Maggie Thatcher opened her piehole.

[DeepModem Mom]

8. K&R

[dipsydoodle]

9. Well I'd sure hope that few here

would disagree with the statemant that Obama visibly incarnates change and hope.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. And he favoured Hillary last year, surprisingly: here are the columns

The man can be a buffoon, and don't think that you'll necessarily like his reasoning, but here it is:

I want Hillary Clinton to be president

Barack Obama: Why I believe he should be the next President

[LeftishBrit]

11. Just shows what Republicans are like, when even Boris Johnson thinks they're far-RW nuts

Not that I can imagine that Johnson's endorsements would have much influence on British voters, let alone American ones. He's a bit of a buffoon.

But he's right about the Republicans. He has criticized Bush before, I think.

[FarrenH]

12. I was chatting to my brother about American conservatism when I visited him in London recently

and he said the UK's conservative party only intersects with US Republicans on a some issues. In fact Republicans are far more socially conservative than most large conservative groupings elsewhere of the developed world. Harper in Canada says he won't touch the gay marriage issue with a stick. The bizarre love-child that came out of fiscal conservatives milking social conservatives for votes in the US has created a party which must lie all the time to mask its internal contradictions. And that has corrupted everything they do.

[LeftishBrit]

13. This is generally true...

though, like the American parties, ours have a lot of diversity within them and some overlap between them. Most Tories tend to be economically, rather than socially, right-wing, and many would be well to the left of the Republicans even on economic issues.

However, we do have a significant number of strong social conservatives in Britain - people who hate gays, single mothers, and abortion; detest immigrants and other minority group members; want to bring back the Birch and the Rope; and feel that everything's got worse since the 1950s, or possibly since the days of Good Queen Victoria, with the single shining exception of our having had Maggie Thatcher as PM. The mindset is best demonstrated by the right-wing tabloids such as the Daily (Hate-) Mail. That being said, someone like Michele Bachmann would have more in common with the fringe-right (e.g. the BNP) in Britain than with most Tories.

I do suspect that, especially as Boris Johnson is of partly Turkish descent, he may find the idea that anyone with any Muslim ancestors is a terra-ist a bit unappealing!