If our ticket wins, I think that is as strong a mandate as winning in a competitive election given we overcame the combination of people who want competitive elections, want anyone but JayDee, OR prefer one of the individuals who've already declared. It's great to see such passion in our election again, it gives me a lot of optimism for the upcoming Senate election and even the next Presidential election, where the field may be more open.
I definitely think that it makes sense for the candidate who runs unopposed in back to back elections to pitch beating RoE twice as a political victory but, from the outside in, it doesn't really pass the smell test. I also think that it is the case that these are
relatively promising numbers given that JayDee is
underwater in every head to head match-up polled (remember, the only poll that matters is on election day).
I have said it before this election cycle, but Presidential candidates who face RoE start from a worse political position precisely because there is no opposing vision that you "win" against. RoE is a messy, "break glass in case of Democratic Emergency" button. RoE faces significant headwinds - the announced candidates are frankly not top tier (no one from the
Smokin' Poll with significant support has expressed that they will run in a RoE triggered election). Somehow CSP and (no offense
) Lloen see as much interest from respondents as the incumbent in the Smokin' Poll - in of itself that's pretty remarkable and suggests weakness rather than strength going into the election (caveat that poll timing matters and the Smokin' Poll occured just after a low point in the Administration, and various Ministries have improved since then).
Beating RoE is not particularly impressive - no Presidential candidate has ever lost to RoE before. RoE got 30% last election - if it improves on that how can it be anything but a disappointment? For our institutions, it certainly is a dissapointment to see RoE twice. IMO if I were JayDee I would be trying to find a punching bag to run against or want to face opponents in a RoE victory.
Thinking back to our previous three consecutive term Presidents, we have Writinglegend and Anumia. Writinglegend needs no introduction - but iirc Anumia actually ran a recall vote against themselves to solidify political power during their Presidential term. Beating RoE twice is definitely how to serve 210 days, but I'm not sure it's mandate territory. (I'm not sure if Anumia did that during their three term run, but it's certainly a contrast in how to "win" a mandate versus claiming it by beating no-body).
My guess is that JayDee will win - perhaps not super comfortably - and RoE will improve on its previous performance. That is IMO the worst case for the JayDee mandate. To be frank I do think it's also good that there isn't anything revolutionary in the platform because we'd have to spend the next 70 days arguing about whether a particular outcome gives a mandate for very significant modifications to our regional institutions.
I think rather than cheerfully breezing past this we should be asking ourselves real questions about the structures of our governance and our electoral systems, and get to the why(s) behind this now repeated event.
If there are so few people willing to serve the office of President then we should consider reform, for sure. It's not worth putting significant expectations on players only to beat them up when no one else wants the job. At the same time, I do think this is frankly a bad sign for Europeian democracy given there is no concrete opposition candidate twice in a row. I am not particularly optimistic and I think it's kinda hard to be, but ymmv.
