Rising with the Sun - The week in review

The UNC and the COP are proving to be winning the hearts. I mean whoever thought of this symbol was brilliant! (lol I suggested it first, but say what, these are for the young, I am just the thinker!) The campaign has turned. The PNM continues to be silly in the season and the UNC has solidified its message.

Its NOT "DO SO!" but "Rise Up" Like a shot of viagra into a old man the UNC has risen to the challenge. With the COP the UNC has become more focussed and has taken every shot at its bows by the PNM mudslinging machine to rebound with solid issues. How is this being achieved? The COP.

Going in no particular order this is what the issues have been

Manning continues to speak from the pulpit as if the Coalition horde has started busting down the gates and the women and children in the castle will be raped and killed. The fear issuing from the PNM platforms is so thick you can cut it with a knife. The PNM supporters pictured in the press are old and die hard, the young ones continue to talk nonsense on the platforms. But most of the young supporters seem absent and maybe for good reason, this is the nonsense coming out of one of the youth leaders:

“Look in your own house, are there any coal pots? Fireside? Fibre mattress? Buffalo pillows?” ...“Or do you see flat screen TVs, a car in the garage, a computer. Ladies and gentlemen we are a prosperous people. Yet there are people trying to convince you that the economy is in bad shape, but ...they are promising pensioners $3,000 a month. Do you believe that? Are they trying to insult your intelligence?"

Yes, I kid you not this was said by a Youth Leader of the PNM on the platform on Tuesday night. This is what it comes down to for a PNM supporter. "We go lose we flat screen TV and other tings!" But let's get something straight, all the PNM has been doing is trying to STOP their own supporters from voting for the COP/UNC (COP mostly) So they are instilling the fear tactic. "You will lose everything when the UNC horde breaks down the gates!" This is countered by the UNC's tactic. Do not engage with like sentiment. Come around and get to the root.

What do people fear more in the country is not so much the loss of their things (most, despite what the PNM thinks in its disconnect, do not HAVE those things! and they won't lose it through a Government, but through the banditry that the government has allowed!), but the insecurity of the future. What the common man on the ground is dealing with up and down the island is having to face the daily grind made harder by no water, traffic and fear of becoming ill and dying on the floor of the hospital AND having your hard earned cash taken from you by the bandits that seem to be in collusion with the same Government!



The PNM has missed the point and also continues to try to divide and conquer. However the more Manning gets up on the stage and instills fear, the more the people begin to fear him as well as everything else. Fear is a powerful emotion and can get very out of control very quickly and has the possibility of turning on the one who created it and that is why Kamla's attack plan is based on "Love and togetherness" Where the PNM is "rending asunder", the UNC is building, the mere fact that the coalition is cementing and looking stronger everyday is because the people seem to be getting the message.

"If the UNC and COP can build then they can rebuild the country"

It is better to build, than destroy. Build up the nation's self esteem. Build up the assurances that we will see a brighter day. Will it be enough?

The COP have quietly slipped into the background as they are wont to do. A middle class "Knife and Fork Party" has no place on the rhetoric of the election platforms. This is the UNC's fight, the COP are the spy's and the cavalry to the UNC's foot soldiers. Observe. At 4 pm on Friday 29th April the COP revealed a plot to make the UDECOTT issue disappear from the hustings. The main foil used by the UNC/COP was in danger of being removed by a sneaky plan by the T&T Government. The PNM would bring back Calder Hart and in a show of masterful PR, would announce that he had been captured and arrested. Then a drum head "trial" as it were, would place Hart in police protection and a court order issued that since this is now before the courts a gag order is in effect, successfully stopping all mention of UDECOTT on the platforms. The PNM statement would be to the effect: "UDECOTT has ceased to be an issue" This meant that the people, under PNM thinking, would eventually forget it in all the mudslinging and the PNM would be in the clear. I SERIOUSLY doubt this would work. . .but let's see what happens on Monday (the date projected that Hart makes his return)

I say kudos to the COP for doing this and bringing this to the fore. Meanwhile the PNM, bowing to public pressure, presumably from INSIDE their own party, have allowed Bernie Campbell (the Obama man) to re enter the country. Any investigation into WHO actually thew the man out? Fuck no, that's the PNM way!

Herbert Volney threw his hat in the ring and as of the time of this writing, is going up for St Joseph on UNC ticket. I for one wish him luck, he may even win but other than being remembered as the man who angered the Attorney General I don't know what his credentials are as a Political animal. We have to wait and see. the PM was aghast, to say the least about this turn of events, I mean Patrick was outfoxed again. I mean he was having the man followed and he STILL didn't see it coming!

Everybody in the PNM seems to be eating Crow and the dishes seem to be getting bigger.

The campaign slugs on.