Saturday, July 28, 2007

My Favorite Japan Analyst Writes in on the Upper House Election

My favorite Japan analyst writes in on the Upper House election. Although I'm not going to put the exact number down here since it may be proprietary information, let's just say that it's very much in line with all the current 40 over-under speculation going on.

Which reminds me, let's just say I'm glad I'm not a real bookie; otherwise, thansk to my earlier 45 over-under offer, I'd be looking forward to a long, long summer vacation. With the fishes.

The turnout looks to be good. Interest is up, and the weekend weather forecasts have improved. This is bad news for the coalition, since the volatile unaligned electorate will break sharply towards the opposition this time.

Coalition candidates have made some headway into getting their supporters behind their candidates. But nothing seems to happening that lessens the public's desire to punish the LDP (though not to reward the opposition) this time around.

I don't see any way that the coalition can engineer a working majority any time soon. I suppose the prime minister can stay on nevertheless if he wishes though, by keeping Taro Aso, and shedding lightweights and lesser lights and replacing them with a more balanced group of middleweights and light heavyweights.. (I assume that the one true heavyweight, with his sense of political drama if nothing else, will continue to make himself scarce.)

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