Word: referendum
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Over the past month, a foolish narrative has been abroad in the land: that this election is going to be a "referendum" on Barack Obama. This is not uncommon in presidential politics--John Kerry's consultants fantasized that the 2004 election was going to be a referendum on George W. Bush--but it is usually peddled by weak campaigns that want to avoid dealing with their own candidate's deficiencies. Presidential elections are never referendums. They are, ultimately, a choice. Two candidates stand on a stage in debate: they talk; you decide...
Furthermore, since Samak announced four months ago he planned to amend the constitution drawn up by a military-appointed committee - and approved in a national referendum - he and his party have been facing prolonged street protests from opposition that claims the changes are designed to invalidate the legal cases against Thaksin and the current government...
...Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating E.U. presidency, has set a deadline of the end of the year for Europe to overcome the Irish problem. He has traveled to Dublin on a listening tour of Irish voters, backpedaling from his intimations that they'd need to hold a second referendum. "I understand it's the Irish," he said, "who must decide...
Beyond the official maneuvering in the wake of the referendum, however, there's a bigger story. The E.U. is one of the great successes of the post-1945 world - a unique geopolitical experiment that has spread peace and prosperity across a continent that, within living memory, had little of either. And yet when asked to endorse its leaders' plans for the future of the Union, European voters have a habit of being ornery. The Irish followed where the Dutch and French led in 2005, rejecting in their own referendums the proposed European constitution. The Irish no, in other words...
When the results came in, Mary Claire Connellan felt ill. The news that Ireland had voted no in a referendum on the European Union's Lisbon treaty on June 12 left her "shaky and sick." Exhaustion didn't help: in the run-up to the vote, the 25-year-old stagiaire - an E.U. intern - had flown back to her native Ireland to canvass for a yes. For Connellan, the promise of a Europe freed from the ways of the past has long been an ideal. "I've seen the damage nationalism can do," she says. "Coming from Ireland...