Spanish General Election 2011

[Antonio the Sixth]

Be careful with "miraculous candidates", Julio... Sometimes they end up in a strange way.

[Niemeyerite]

Be careful with "miraculous candidates", Julio... Sometimes they end up in a strange way.

rubalcaba won't have challenger, most likely. if someone wants to challenge him, that person will have to collect 22,000 signatures in the next 15 days. and for the moment, only one person has announced. a philosophy teacher who's also a musician and who took part in a TV programme. so, a joke of a candidate, as I said.

[minionofmidas]

Toni's thinking of DSK.

[Niemeyerite]

Toni's thinking of DSK.

yes, but DSK had challengers, rubalcaba will be running alone. and he's not an ambiguous politician, like DSK.

[Niemeyerite]

now that rubalcaba is the candidate... and if a miracle doesn't happen, will be the winner of our primaries... we have a new poll from "el periodico de catalunya", and likely we'll have new polls on sunday.

PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA:

PP 44% (-0.5%)
PSOE 35.3% (+4.3%)
IU 5.8%
UPyD 4.1%
CiU 3%
PNV 1.2%
ERC 0.7%
Others 5.9%

Who would you prefer as your President?

Rubalcaba 40.8%
Rajoy 35.4%

[Antonio the Sixth]

The discrepancy between party poll and personal poll is quite stunning.

[Niemeyerite]

The discrepancy between party poll and personal poll is quite stunning.

Yes, it may be because Rubalcaba is the most popular politician in Spain (he and Chacon are the only ones who could be considered "popular") while Rajoy has always been hated by everyone.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The discrepancy between party poll and personal poll is quite stunning.

Yes, it may be because Rubalcaba is the most popular politician in Spain (he and Chacon are the only ones who could be considered "popular") while Rajoy has always been hated by everyone.

But why doesn't his popularity translate on the party vote ? People know voting PP means getting Rajoy and voting PSOE means getting Rubalcaba, don't they ?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You could have asked Callaghan the same thing in 1979.

[Niemeyerite]

The discrepancy between party poll and personal poll is quite stunning.

Yes, it may be because Rubalcaba is the most popular politician in Spain (he and Chacon are the only ones who could be considered "popular") while Rajoy has always been hated by everyone.

But why doesn't his popularity translate on the party vote ? People know voting PP means getting Rajoy and voting PSOE means getting Rubalcaba, don't they ?

Yes, but there's a good amount of people who probably don't know Rubalcaba won't be our candidate. Then, remember that IU voters prefer him over Rajoy, and even over Cayo Lara (IU's leader), but will vote IU anyways.
And then you have those CiU, ERC, PNV, BNG, CC, Na-Bai voters who say they'll vote for their parties... but then realize if they don't vote PSOE,  Rajoy will be president. And Rubalcaba is popular among nationalist voters, too. So, my theory is that they dislike PSOE, but Rubalcaba is OK for them.
A good example of that is my family in Catalunya. They always vote CiU. But they like Rubalcaba. If you ask them what party they'll vote, they'll answer: CiU.
But if the question is who would you vote if the election was Rajoy vs. Rubalcaba vs. lara vs. duran i lleida (ciu's leader)...? they would likely answer Rubalcaba.
And I'd bet my money they'll finally vote PSOE next year. Their vote was for Zapatero in 2008, too.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The discrepancy between party poll and personal poll is quite stunning.

Yes, it may be because Rubalcaba is the most popular politician in Spain (he and Chacon are the only ones who could be considered "popular") while Rajoy has always been hated by everyone.

But why doesn't his popularity translate on the party vote ? People know voting PP means getting Rajoy and voting PSOE means getting Rubalcaba, don't they ?

Yes, but there's a good amount of people who probably don't know Rubalcaba won't be our candidate. Then, remember that IU voters prefer him over Rajoy, and even over Cayo Lara (IU's leader), but will vote IU anyways.
And then you have those CiU, ERC, PNV, BNG, CC, Na-Bai voters who say they'll vote for their parties... but then realize if they don't vote PSOE,  Rajoy will be president. And Rubalcaba is popular among nationalist voters, too. So, my theory is that they dislike PSOE, but Rubalcaba is OK for them.
A good example of that is my family in Catalunya. They always vote CiU. But they like Rubalcaba. If you ask them what party they'll vote, they'll answer: CiU.
But if the question is who would you vote if the election was Rajoy vs. Rubalcaba vs. lara vs. duran i lleida (ciu's leader)...? they would likely answer Rubalcaba.
And I'd bet my money they'll finally vote PSOE next year. Their vote was for Zapatero in 2008, too.

I hope you're right, that people will realize that either they vote strategically or they will get the fascists... But I'm pretty worried these numbers could hold...

[Niemeyerite]

After PP won everything last week... things have been changing a lot.
First, Esperanza Aguirre cut the aides to the childhood books. Also, she has increased her salary (she said in her campaign she would not do that).
In Castilla La Mancha, PP's said the community is in bankruptcy, but that's obviously false. Books for school are free there, but Cospedal has said they won't be free anymore. and she's really unpopular.
Rajoy has said "we will have the welfare state we can have", cleary referring to cuts in the communities where they have won the Presidency. So, IMO, the election will be really close come 2012.

Remember that PP won the regional and local elections in 2007, but lost in 2008. The same could happen this time.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So the PP isn't even trying to look sane and moderate and is shooting itself in the foot by showing everyone it is 100 times worse than the PSOE ? That's certainly great news.

[Niemeyerite]

So the PP isn't even trying to look sane and moderate and is shooting itself in the foot by showing everyone it is 100 times worse than the PSOE ? That's certainly great news.

Spain is more conservative than France, or Italy or the UK. But here we have a conservative party which looses points in every general election campaign. It always happens. They could have thorwn Rajoy out and selected a new candidate, like Gallardon or Feijoo, and they would have won in 2008, and 2012 wouldn't be even close.

[Leftbehind]

Aguirre the schoolbook snatcher...doesn't have the same ring to it.

[Niemeyerite]

Aguirre the schoolbook snatcher...doesn't have the same ring to it.

hahaha... Aguirre should have lost this year... Javier Solana should have run =/ but I'm confident she'll loose in 2015. this year was PPslide and she still lost a lot of votes.

And today we have had some new polls... where PSOE is down 10 points (El Mundo) and 13.8 points (EL PAIS). but rubalcaba leads rajoy by 6 points in the two polls.

[minionofmidas]

Aguirre the schoolbook snatcher...doesn't have the same ring to it.

Is that an Aguirre, the Wrath of God reference or am I seeing things?

[Niemeyerite]

Aguirre the schoolbook snatcher...doesn't have the same ring to it.

Is that an Aguirre, the Wrath of God reference or am I seeing things?

It's surely a reference hahahaha...

[Keystone Phil]

Looks like it's being moved up a few months to November 20th - http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iEQ8pAl_gNoauJYA6u8je3NlZp1A?docId=CNG.2ffb46ba6b1be5db2d6f75f4440c5c02.2f1

[Hash]

I don't really know what they're trying to gain. Letting the Falangists take charge a tad earlier? Hope quixotically to gain something out of Rubalcaba's recent nomination? Hope that corruption in Valencia and the Falange in general will play a role?

At any rate, a PSOE win in this would be a comeback kid for the centuries. Yes, I know Rubalcaba's quite popular and Rajoy isn't, but the PP remains favoured.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Might be thinking that there's no point in stretching things out any further.

[Hash]

July 2011 CIS poll/vote estimate:

PP 43.1%
PSOE 36%
IU 5.1%
CiU 3.1%
UPyD 3%
ERC 1.1%
PNV 1%

[Filuwaúrdjan]

July 2011 CIS poll/vote estimate:

PP 43.1%
PSOE 36%
IU 5.1%
CiU 3.1%
UPyD 3%
ERC 1.1%
PNV 1%

Hmm... PP lead less than what I presumed it to be.

[republicanism]

Maybe Zapatero tries a Schröder-like coup. Who called snap elections when the party trailed by 28:45 or so, and came damn close.
But - platitude alert! - of course Spain 2011 is different to Germany 2005.

Fingers crossed that the PP at least doesn't win an outright majority.

[Niemeyerite]

Zapatero didn't want to move the election to november. but Rubalcaba did, because he thinks PSOE can make a comeback. I think we should have elections in March, not November. but here are the reasons:

-50% of the people wanted elections before March, 2012. Of that 50%, many are PSOE voters.

-Unemployement is the biggest problem here in Spain. We loose jobs in October, November, December, January, February and March, while we gain jobs in the spring and summer. If we have elections in Nomvember, the unemployement rate will be lower than in March. That'll surely help Rubalcaba.

- ETA's really weak right now. Rubalcaba's the most popular and succesful Minister of the Interior. And people are talking that ETA will dissolve by september-october.

- Francisco Camps, president of Valencia, reisgned last month (you know, corruption, as usual). Rubalcaba thinks he can use that in the campaign. But March may be too late to use the "Caso Gurtel" in the campaign.

-Rubalcaba has the momentum right now. It could be finished by March (that's what he thinks, because I disagree).

- There's a reason elections will be held in November, 20, known in Spain as 20-N, the day Franco died. That'll help PSOE, I think.

The campaign hasn't started, and Rajoy is "only" 7 points ahead of Rubalcaba. Remember that 4 months ago, his lead was of 15 points. And rmemeber that Rajoy is an awful campaigner, too, while Rubalcaba is charismatic and moderate. PSOE's clearly trying to loose by a small margin, they didn't think they could win before this poll. But now there's optimism in the party.

I think we could still win this election with a good campaign. We have the right candidate. They have the wrong canidate. And look at this questions CIS poll asked:

we'll read some words. Tell me which candidate represents them better:

Efficiency:                                Rubalcaba 38.9%       Rajoy 28.3%
Dialogue:                                 Rubalcaba 45.3%       Rajoy 25.1%
Negotiation skills:                    Rubalcaba 42.3%       Rajoy 25.5%
Honestity:                                Rubalcaba 31.6%       Rajoy 22.1%
Understands Spain problems: Rubalcaba 34.7%       Rajoy 27.6%
Forward-looking approach:     Rubalcaba 34%          Rajoy 29.7%