The week in Review

So we're coming up to the end of April, very close, its payday for most and just another day for most of us who live hand to mouth in this isle we call paradise. But here we are.

Not being one to ramble on, I'm looking at you Kamla, nor one to incite hatred, like you Patos, well maybe hatred for stupidity and thoughtlessness, I start this blog on a light hearted note:

This campaign cannot get worse than it is.

Or can it?

Stupidity reigns on BOTH sides of the political area (remember we have no third party this time, so we can't use them as a scapegoat) The first stupid thing is Manning calling this election in the first place! That was dumb. Bas saying he will fight Warner one on one, dumber still. But you know what was even dumber than that?

PNM Youth League says not to worry over Uff findings

Really? Really?! You can't be serious?! Really? But I digress. There is more dumb stuff to follow.

The COP and the UNC finally rallied together and signed the agreement. Now this may be nitpicking, but you don't go signing a YELLOW document in full view of the public and not expect SOME commentators to mention it. That would be dumb. What was more dumb was the presentations by both COP and UNC. Full of sound and fury, signifying. . . something.

This something was Ashworth Jack.

Without Ashworth Jack that entire meeting would have been lost. He was concise, he was powerful AND he spoke the issues for Tobago. Ashworth Jack needs to be Kamla's speech coach and writer, because what Kamla did after Ashworth and Dookeraan was to make everyone go home.

Kamla, if you want to be leader, you need to sound like one. You seemed tired and put upon by all those other men sitting behind you on the stage: all 7 leaders of this coalition. And yes Mr Manning coalitions DO work, except inside of the PNM as you and Rowley have so proved. Its your way, or the highway right? In fact do your research better and then maybe you wouldn't sound so dumb. Yes Malaysia has no freedom of the press, but then how free IS the press here anyway? You understand?

Dumb.

More dumbness. Cristine Kangaloo got up on the PNM stage on Tuesday night in Tabaquite and spoke a bout a myriad or things, one thing was that the country should vote for the PNM because they gave us "Free Education" and wrapped up in that is how the PNM has made education better for all of us. "They were teaching about the History of Texas! What does the History of Texas have to do with us?! I don't want to learn about that!" Well Ms Kangaloo, did it ever occur to you that learning about historical events makes you a little more knowledgeable? There is something you should know about the history of Texas that might apply very well to your party's current situation. It was called "The Alamo" Do you think yet that being surrounded on all sides by a greater number of issues raised about your government's corrupt practices, makes you like Davy Crockett et al, out gunned, out manned and out maneuvered? Tell us Ms Kangaloo, what was the result of "The Alamo?"  Or is it that you are rejecting the idea that one's pursuit of independence in action and in thought should not be learned?

I think that's what makes you dumb.

But the dumbest thing of all had to be the Thursday night deportation of Henry Bernard Campbell, the UNC advisor who was hired to handle the marketing and strategy of the campaign. I mean PNM, you could at least MAKE UP something, plant some weed on him or something! As of now even Martin Joseph backpedaling and saying "He never did it." Well if you didn't do it Mr "Homee-sides" Then who did? This was so blatant and shows that I think the PNM really are desperate! I mean they've been putting their foot in their mouth all this time.

This action has given Kamla something to work on, its like being handed the PNM playbook. You CAN'T POSSIBLY fuck this up now UNC/COP, this is handed to you on a silver platter. You can run with this.

But will they?

The campaign chugs on.

THIS. IS. ELECTIONS!

So we have a date. The country took a breath and everyone started running around like headless chickens trying to get registered, and checking lists and so on. DeepThought has been telling you about voting for the last few weeks and should you want to read it you can read about "Why you should Vote," "Why the Numbers Tell you to vote," and "How to get registered." As of today, the EBC is in full registration mode only 5 more days to get on that golden list. So before I start thinking about the events of the last week I just want to say a few key things.

1. That I will try to update this page everyday with thoughts, it will be difficult as the shits going to be flying fast and furious for the next 40 days.
2. I am hoping to start posting the lists of candidates hopefully by the end of next week, as the PNM has already nearly finished it nominations, I'm just waiting on UNCOP/TOP to solidify their agreement and get the candidates out the door.
3. I will try to concentrate on the marginals and see what the feeling is on the ground.
4. No I won't tell you what constituency I am in, DeepThought has to have his own privacy!
5. and No. DeepThought will NOT tell you what he's going to do in the voting booth, BUT I think you already know!

So onto this week in review. Well we'll start with Friday. May 24th is the day of election. No fanfare, no trumpeting from the pulpit by the PM Pastor, he simply called up his partner Max and after all the bullshit talk about free tickets to this fete and who was at the other fete, he conversationally said "May 24th breds" and the notaries rushed to the one fax machine in the new PM's office, and started faxing to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised which radio station got it first, that would be Citadel Radio, run by our very own PNM-ite Louis LeeSing. Good for him, he got a sccop. So now the opposition has a chance to do what they couldn't do in 2007.

Meanwhile the PM continued his screening and Wednesday and Thursday were not free from Bobol. In fact Monday and Tuesday had even MORE bobol. The bobol for the PNM started on the weekend when Penelope Beckles was asked to take a "diplomatic posting" and car named Laurel, oooppss I meant a GIRL (for she is a VERY young girl) CALLED Laurel Lezema-Leesing (see a connection?) was put in Penelope's place. The Arima PNM-ites placarded late into the night shouting "No Penelope, NO VOTE!" Hmmm sounds familiar doesn't it? (excuse the language, I couldn't find the newspaper article) So the PNM-ites love to do the same things over and over. They placarded for Ken but the voted in that idiot Amery Brown, when they "claimed" they would vote for the COP. Hmmm What were the final results in that constiuency I wonder. Here check it yourself Amery Brown 9,301 votes. Not bad for the people who said they'd vote COP. (BTW the Vasant Barath people on the UNC side were saying the same thing. . . Trini's so predictable!)

So that leads us to the biggest bobol yet. Mr Keith "Rotweiler" Rowley. His seat is the ONLY seat I will consider a safe right now. The PNM knows it. The PM, KNOWS that he cannot lose Rowley this time around. See how politics makes strange bedfellows? Keith's nomination was secured and his crowd was just as big as Penelope. So how is this going to work? How is Keith going to go on a platform and extoll the virtues of his party, prepare speeches on PNM policy that has been proven bad for the country AND push the election of his Political Leader back in as PM. My thoughts are that Rowley can say ANYTHING at this point, even say vote for the COP, they can't stop him. So we'll just have to see what tricks he's going to turn on the hustings. We'll have to watch Mr Rowley over the next 40 days.

Now onto the Opposition. They've had the headlines for most of the week. Accommodation this and meeting that and "72 hour deadline" this. In the end what seems to have occurred is that Jack Warner has laid down the law. "Look we have 15 safe seats, you can give us MAYBE 4 more. You have nothing to bargain with. BUT we don't want you running off to your supporters and turning them away OR splitting the vote again. So here wha Dooks, you can run in St Augustine if you want, and other than San Juan/Barataria and our 15 seats and Tobago, you run anywhere you like." That leaves Tunapuna and the rest of the marginals for the COP to fight. Is this a good strategy? I will reserve comment on this until the analysts have sounded off some more as the election starts to get into full swing.

What I do know is that in certain PNM held seats if the voter turn out increases and enough people vote against the PNM, we could have a repeat of 1986. But we shall have to wait and see.

Kamla's speech on Friday night waffled some more and kept imploring people to vote out the PNM, but with no clear idea WHAT they plan to do when in Government, its seems that the only person to save Kamla and the UNC from itself is the logistics and policy making of the COP and THEIR track record hasn't been good at that either. How do you provide an alternative to something so solid as "Vision 2020?" while the "back to Basics" idea sounds nice, it DOES sound like a lot of hard work, and let's face it, Trini's lazy, they would rather someone TELL them that by 2020 they will be developed than someone tell them "You have to WORK to get 2020 status." So we shall see.

I am still formulating my last part to my "Manifesto for We." post on "culture" Stay tuned for that.