Word: platformization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...other problem with this rosy image is that it obscures Bhutto’s record. Her political power was almost completely derived from her father, Pakistan’s only genuinely popular democrat. She failed to capitalize on even this platform...
Candidates these days need whatever help they can get. Many, like Hussain, have received letters from the interior ministry claiming they are on terrorists' hit lists, and should avoid large rallies. The threats may be fabricated, says Hussain, an attempt to keep opposition candidates and their anti-Musharraf platform out of sight, but still, "you can never be too sure." In years past Hussain would have called massive rallies in town centers; these days she reaches out through small gatherings in private courtyards, repeating her speeches as many as five times a day. Between rallies she drives in a convoy...
...Party (PPP), founded by Bhutto's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. It is an interesting turn: in the mid-1990s, Hussain was the Ambassador to the United States for then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the sworn enemy of the Bhutto dynasty. As she sits on a hastily constructed outdoor platform covered in tattered oriental rugs, in the village of Lalian, she addresses a small crowd of turbaned and prayer-capped men. They are local farmers, lured by the promise of tea, snacks and the entertainment that election rallies bring to the destitute villages of southern Punjab...
Hussain has little to offer in the way of a platform. The rise of suicide bombers, and a flour, gas and electricity shortage that is reaching crisis proportions feature in all her speeches, but she gives no concrete solutions other than the ouster of Musharraf, whom she refers to as a "tinpot dictator" and other unflattering epithets that are unpublishable in Pakistan because of the government's media crackdown...
...Obama, by contrast, radiates the new. He doesn't just talk about change; he looks like change. His person and his platform are virtually indistinguishable. Obama, like Tiger Woods and Angelina Jolie, has one of those faces that seem beamed from a postracial future, when everyone will have a permanent, noncarcinogenic tan. He has small kids and a low BMI. His voice rumbles with authority, but his ears stick out like Opie Taylor's. His campaign is crawling with cool young people, and the candidate fits right in. We've yet to see Obama flustered or harried; instead, he gives...