In Macron v Le Pen, the latest polling has Le Pen at just under 40%, and Macron at just over 60%. The polls have narrowed a bit over 3% since the first round.
But....
Odds makers have Le Pen 2 out of 7 to win the presidency, and Macron with only a 1 in 6 chance. The odds makers were right about Trump and Brexit.
Macron, et al, are repeating the same mantra that Democrats/Clinton and the anti-Brexit folks spewed recently - a vote for the other person/idea is a vote for chaos and the devil! When the Establishment tries to frighten people, it doesn't work.
Le Pen is very crafty. She knows that a huge portion of Melenchon's vote is more worried about responding to the liberal agenda/capitalism and the plight of working people in France, then about, for example, the plight of Muslim immigrants and Greeks in Greece, and about Europe. She is going all in on the "people of France" mantra to try to get this vote - the retirement age will be lowered, small business will be helped, taxes will be lowered, the 35 hour work week and civil servants will be protected.
Macron, on the other hand, is focused on furthering the very liberal world agenda that is now tied, almost 100%, to the perception of a corrupt elite. Where he gets specific, it may only cause worry - he will cut the civil service, slash labour costs (he says through a reduction in payroll taxes), cut corporate taxes to help the conglomerates, engage more internationally, and he has promised to not raise the retirement age (...which is what you promise when you are thinking about raising it...), all of which for many workers means insecurity.
He also speaks in term of capitalist ideology, while Le Pen is speaking far more directly to the actual interests of voters (those chickens in pots....cars in garages...the state not in your bedroom that get you elected.) She is also much stronger on security, which is a very real concern, and where there is a real perception that the elites dropped the ball badly. If I were a shareholder of Goldman, Sachs, I'd be very worried...
And what about Europe - Macron's trump card? Melenchon was not a supporter of Europe as it is now. The people who voted for him did not vote for the present European experiment. He would have wanted to stay in Europe, but also wanted to renegotiate the EU treaties, as if that could be done without massive upheaval. Combined, Round One was at least a 40% + vote against Europe as it is now - that vote showing up en masse in May gives Le Pen the presidency. There is also a very powerful anti-elite bent underpinning to both the Le Pen and Melenchon camps that Macron cannot respond to. Again, 75% of voters in the first round voted against the parties that they knew.
Forget Melenchon, isn't this in the bag? Macron was the socialist economy minister under the despised Hollande - I think this will cause many conservatives to stay away. He is also loudly proclaiming that he is not a socialist now - which I think will cause many socialists to stay away. He may cunningly fall between two stools here, meaning he may not pick up much of the conservative/socialist vote he thinks he has in spades.
And so, I think Macron's vote is the one with the least potential to show grown next month, not Le Pen's. Here it is...
Le Pen - 54%
Macron - 46%
The workers really liked Hitler too.
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