Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Here’s “Ripe Old Age Guy” on the Political Situation…

From yesterday morning, my fifteen five minutes of fame. I’m not giving you my age, but you can see for yourself how ripe I am.

If you can’t bear to watch the video, I make the point that the tax hike and a snap election would be upon us at most within a few months. (As of this moment, it’s looking more likely that the tax and social safety net reform bill will be passed sooner rather than later, but that’s no big deal.) More important to me, I went out on limb and claimed that there’d be a DPJ-LDP coalition, a coalition that would eventually break down and lead to broader realignment. The nice thing about TV, I’m told, is that no one remembers when you’re wrong, and you are free to toot your horn when you’re right.

We’ll see.

2 comments:

Jan Moren said...

A well-lived 45 or so? And I guess you get this from time to time, but you do resemble a young Mel Brooks in both voice and facial expressions.

As far as the contents of your views, I agree that if they're foolhardly enough to create a super-coalition it will break apart and quite possibly trigger real realignment. If nothing else than for the reason that voters would be ready to vote for Hashimoto candidates, or a Yoshimoto comedian, or a Kyou No Wanko-star, or an oddly-shaped stick - anything to avoid any of the diet members involved in that coalition.

Jun Okumura said...

Jan:

I’ll take “young Mel Brooks” any day; I was thinking “past-consume by date Louis Black on The Daily Show

I know that a super-coalition is about as palatable as breaking two eggs to make an omelet—with the eggshells. But it makes more sense than caucusing with a motley crew of mini- and micro-parties or, worse, forming a minority government with no control over either house of the Diet. Funny you mention Yoshimoto comedian, because Osaka has a history of sending Yoshimoto alumni to the Diet and the governor’s mansion.