Tuesday, February 20, 2007

[french presidency] segolene fighting rearguard action

One photo says it all. A beautiful woman appeals to the ordinary citizen for a fair chance. Trouble is, politics is cruel.

"I will be the president who will battle against youth unemployment," she told an audience of ordinary citizens on French television … She is widely seen as now seeking to revive her campaign after a series of gaffes and policy disputes. Overall, French papers agreed it was a solid but lacklustre performance, which failed to ignite enough sparks to re-start Ms Royal's campaign. Her standing in the polls has continued to slip despite a 100-point platform she unveiled on 11 February.

Opinion polls published just hours before the appearance showed less than a quarter of people intended to vote for her in the first round of ballot on 22 April. This was her worst showing since she won her party's nomination in November. Two new polls also indicate that the candidate who came third in voting intentions for the first round, Francois Bayrou of the centrist UDF party, would beat either Mr Sarkozy or Ms Royal if he made it to the run-off.

Count me in as one who admires her demeanour, her presence but sadly, that alone is not going to make her president, for these reasons:

1] She's a political lightweight with no real agenda although she's tried to rectify that. Can you see her in negotiations with North Korea and China, getting the better of them? With Cheney or the Taliban?

2] She has loopy ideas based on some sort of vague, PC, love-everyone niceness, which brings us to the next point:

3] She's too nice, too naïve. Of course she's a clever woman who knows how to get what she wants but her comment about the UMP's dirty tactics is the comment of a schoolgirl, which is really how many view her. Too pretty for power.

4] There's Sarkozy. Disliked and distrusted by many, he's still a hardened campaigner who knows where it's at. Everyone in France, deep down, knows that.

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