Word: socialistics
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Anyone living in America, particularly those accustomed to the televised exchanges between Hillary and Barack, would have been surprised by the Spanish presidential debate on Tuesday night between the incumbent Socialist president of the government, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and his Popular Party (PP) rival, Mariano Rajoy. As in any close race, there were plenty of violent accusations flying around; yet the Spanish leaders were not afraid to cite hard statistics and read past quotations to each others’ face. Instead of telling compelling stories about single mothers, displaced workers, and war veterans, they brought graphs...
...Socialist government passed comprehensive immigration reforms including an amnesty for certain illegal immigrants in 2005. In a Europe plagued with chronic budget deficits, the administration also run a healthy budget surplus in years of strong economic expansion. According to official finance ministry data, in 2007 the fiscal surplus was the second only to Finland in Europe, totaling over 23 billion euros or 2.3 percent of GDP. In fact, the government grew the surplus over 30 percent in the last year, which was the third consecutive without red on the balance sheet...
...particular taste for data-savvy politicians, but their voting preferences are much like those of the rest of the world: There is no worse time to run for reelection than when your electorate is fearing for their pockets. Given these circumstances, the otherwise easy electoral victory for the Socialist administration has become much harder to achieve...
...held just a few months from now, let alone a year. Then, the economic outlook might have been much worse and immigration might have become an even more divisive issue. The twin issues at the core of the campaign would clearly have benefited the PP by eroding the Socialist base of blue-collar workers afraid of their mortgage payments and foreign labor competition...
...Socialists, on the other hand, have emphasized the international nature of the economic crisis and reiterated that they are better equipped to handle future problems. "We've reduced the public debt and increased the surplus," says Socialist Party campaign director Oscar López. "And we've shown, by raising the minimum wage, and by offering a 400-euro rebate to all tax payers, that we know how to help Spanish families...