politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Buttigieg’s powerful new argument two weeks before Iowa : When

I’ve just had an email from an old acquaintance who has recently visited Iowa where he attended a packed Pete Buttigieg meeting, asked questions of the young contender and got himself a selfie. This is from his email.
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Oh and first.
Regardless of who you want to win, 2-7 is value considering he was 4-7 at the start and he's two frames clear.
Buttigieg has collapsed to 3rd in the 2 latest Iowa caucuses polls and is even further behind nationally in 4th just 0.2% ahead of Bloomberg on average.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/ia/iowa_democratic_presidential_caucus-6731.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html
Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham already have fine universities, global leaders in some fields indeed.
No stats please!
Who knows, they might even build an annexe in Wales.
It's not quite Rome at its peak in terms of dominance now, but it will go well beyond that. Only the careless have failed to secure themselves some small garret which will buy great swathes of other countries now and the actual full country soon. 1bed flat or Luxembourg?
My daughter went to Kings because of the course, rather than the location. In her last two years she was able to rent from parents of friends who had bought a small house in St Johns Wood they were planning to do up and were happy to rent out on the meanwhile. Naturally she loved it.
Once that ended she faced the reality of renting small cramped overpriced flats and her costs taking up most of any income she could earn with little prospect of saving. So she has decamped from London and is now running her own business. The work is hard and stressful but she has independence, is learning a lot and is able to save for a home and travel. There are downsides: opportunities - both in terms of work and people to meet - are necessarily less than in a large city. But she is still much happier.
It is very hard for the young to make a go of it in London without help from parents - unless they are working in the City or associated sectors. Not everyone wants to do that. Professional life in London can easily resemble a hamster wheel, if you’re not careful.
We want and need different things from life at different stages. Sneering at London or the provinces is tiresome and childish, betraying nothing more than the author’s inability to find the interesting in all sorts of unexpected places.
As Munich University is doing -- making money by selling buildings in the centre.
That money could have been added to their endowment ... and used to fund grants for low income students, or students from abroad, or PhDs, or research & teaching.
The idea that the London Colleges have to be located on the Strand, or in Bloomsbury Square, or on Exhibition Rd, or they won't thrive & the students won't come, is just Meeksianic drivel.
That is end of the world stuff.
Just to add to the European polling news in which no one seemed interested (significant Irish opinion poll included):
The latest Spanish poll has PSOE on 30%, PP on 20% and VOX on 17%. Is there any possibility VOX could overtake PP and become the lead opposition from the centre-right before the next Cortes election?
That’s far too nuanced an answer. London is marvellous and one is ignorant if one suggests that it has flaws or it is Dante’s undocumented 8th circle. There can be nothing in between
I was at King’s and then one of the Institutes. I was lucky with my tutors but even in the 1990s, accommodation was a mess (and the private rental scene far worse). I’m not sure that I’d recommend any of the central London colleges to my children. But, I and all my siblings went to London colleges because we grew up in quite a rural, isolated area and aged 18 you run away from that quickly.
None of us live in London any longer, although one works there and I lived/worked there for 20 years. I find boasting about a sophisticated London life while living in a zone 3/4 suburb incomprehensible. All the downside, none of the benefits.
Satellite campuses are ok.
See for instance
https://www.unitestudents.com/
How very tiresome.
On the plus side, the weather today was utterly magical.
All prime ministers' voices from Gladstone to May.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP0h4AP0Voo
None of this answers the question of how we can make London a city fit for those who are not stinking rich.
The one poll that matters is the Des Moines Register one due out a week on Saturday.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/iowa/
(Note the Klobuchar surge)
Do you supplement vitamin D during the sunless months ?
I took my three children there in 1987 and my daughter had her first romance in Amalfi.
We have been back several times and it's magic and romance does not diminish whatsover and it is the one place I have enjoyed pizzas, as I am not normally a fan, with or without pineapple !!!!!
Having said that it was in the early 70s so I'm not sure how relevant that is today.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/19/isabel-dos-santos-revealed-africa-richest-woman-2bn-empire-luanda-leaks-angola
A Panorama programme is lined up to examine the imbroglio surrounding Isabel dos Santos which also figures accountancy firm PWC.
It looks like your "successful black african businesswoman" has some explaining to do
Adam Bolton in STimes.
So who can say, but my gut is telling me that Mayor Pete will come through on the night.
(the pollster's website)
God help us all.
I have often wondered what proportion of caucus/primary voters are actually fully intent on voting for the other side come November, and register for the "wrong" party to help ensure a beatable candidate/more palatable alternative. I'm sure there's a poll on this somewhere, although how much you could trust the results I'm not sure.
90% of PBers who pontificate about how awful London is know sweet fuck all about London.
Apparently they are being designed and built on the following basis - the walls and layout are setup so that when required, x number of the student coffin rooms will be knocked together to create flats - a cheap conversion in a matter of weeks...
They are being built in so-so areas - the idea is to soak the students of as much money as possible in that phase. Charmingly, student accommodation often gets round the problem of x% being required to be social housing.
Then, when the area has gentrified a bit, at the end of the academic year the students are not replace. So no problem with existing tenants. Then convert to flats. Which doesn't count as change of use - so the builders said.
My daughter keeps getting nasty coughs and runny noses too.
It's not been a nice autumn/winter for bugs.
So, I picked Bristol.
I don't regret it.
London can easily burn you out and clean you out even on two good salaries.
Who knew?
99 percent of PB-ers who pontificate about Wales or Scotland would not be able to place Dolgellau or Stranraer on a map.
Like a train buff, I have travelled all over the UK - twitching rare birds. There would be few 10 sq miles of mainland Britain I haven't travelled to or through. I will have fun some time trying to work out where I haven't been. Nowhere in England for sure. Maybe around Lampeter in Wales. Much of Scotland has been done - all the coast and much crossing between. Lewis and Harris is still a gap in the outer Hebs. Islay but not Jura. But the rest of the Inner and Outer Hebs have been visited, along with Shetland, Fair Isle and the Orkneys.
St. Kilda is still on the bucket list. SeanT has that one on me.
I think that's a little bit of my point.
https://twitter.com/bbcnickrobinson/status/1219022283404201984?s=19
"Dolgellau was a station on the Ruabon to Barmouth railway line. The line opened on 4th August 1868 and closed to passengers on 18th January 1965 as a result of the Beeching Axe."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51166339
I wish him well in a life free, at least, from the shackles of Big Royalty.
But his severe lack of charisma and lack of empathy makes him hated by anyone who doesn't make more than 150k a year and isn't white.
Buttigieg's problem is that he comes off as a rich snob, the male version of Jo Swinson.
That's why he is the only candidate of the top 4 that even if he does win Iowa and N.Hampshire he will not win the nomination, no Hispanic or African American will vote for him, they hate his guts.
One time, long ago in Wiltshire, I was out on a sunny Sunday with an odd bunch. a couple of genuine old school gypsies, some near'do-wells from the pub.. there was an archery target in the field next to the churchyard, and someone had a bought a longbow they had crudely whittled themselves. Must have been a hundred pounds pull. So we drank some beers and the arrows slammed into the target. There was something strange in watching a kid who had essentially no prospects in life concentrating on the mark....
But then again, so many will walk across Nepal and not exchange a word beyond Namaste with any but their guide.
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