Word: partisan
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Notorious for most of his career as a ferociously partisan conservative, French President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to have changed gear since his election in May. First, he named longtime Socialist Bernard Kouchner as his foreign minister, and included a handful of other leftists in his cabinet - a move denounced by the Socialists as taking advantage of personal ambition to divide and conquer the left. (Kouchner was expelled from the party.) Now, detractors charge, Sarkozy is seeking to sway the outcome of the Socialist Party's internal power struggle by off-shoring one of its main contenders, former Finance Minister Dominique...
...wrong track. About two-thirds of the public disapprove of the job performance of President Bush, and an even higher number disdain Congress. The media are excited about the prospect of a wealthy businessman running for President as an independent who could tap into broad public disgruntlement with the partisan politicians in Washington...
...that has started as early as this one, Heather Smith couldn't have expected she would already be so busy. But "my phone started ringing the day after midterms and it hasn't stopped ringing since," says Smith, 30, the executive director of Young Voter Strategies (YVS). Her non-partisan organization, which she founded after the 2004 election with funding help from Pew and George Washington University, analyzes how to best mobilize young voters. That section of the electorate has traditionally been treated as an afterthought until weeks before the actual voting. But this time around top presidential contenders...
Kouchner attracts plenty of his own attention these days. His appointment in May by the conservative new President Nicolas Sarkozy sent a charge through France's political scene. With one move, Sarkozy robbed his Socialist Party foes of one of their most famous members, tempered his image as a partisan right-winger, and sent a message to leaders across the world that his government would bring big changes. Richard Holbrooke, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and a close friend of Kouchner, calls it an "astonishing" appointment, predicting: "This could mean major changes in French foreign policy in Israel, Africa...
...Partisan politics certainly benefit the country in many ways. Nonpartisan problems, however, and they beg for comparably nonpartisan answers from politicians...