Comments on: Election Management

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:11:13 +0000

Frankly, Andante, I think they give Putin a creepy feeling based on a couple of videos. They are certainly not the Young Pioneers [Soviet era communist youth clubs]. They act more like rock groupies.

By: andante

andante — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:22:02 +0000

Agreed, but his “Putin Youth” or whatever they call themselves really gives me the Cold War heebie-jeebies.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:56:53 +0000

You don’t have to like someone to admire their ability. Picasso was by by all accounts about as caring on a personal level as Rudy Giuliani, but he could create.

Putin took democracy apart, figured out how it worked and then built his own customized version suited to Russia. He is competent and gets things done which is all the Russian people want after Yeltsin. He will be around for a very long time.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:45:59 +0000

Putin is indeed a master and a work of art at his craft. That said, he is also immensely popular in Russia as “the savior of the country” and could pretty much write his own ticket even without the electoral manipulations. Granted, much of this popularity is because the State-dominated media does everything possible to paint him in the brightest light possible, but also Russians remember the hungry Yeltsin years and the relatively affluent Putin years and know which one they prefer, and would prefer not to take chances on an unknown.

All in all, Putin is an impressive politician. Ruthless, unscrupulous, and no friend of any nation other than Russia, but impressive all the same. But I’m sure glad he’s Russian rather than American. Can you imagine what it’d be like if someone like Putin had risen to power at the head of the Republican machine, rather than the inept and incompetent Bush? We’d be in the gulag by now…

By: Fallenmonk

Fallenmonk — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:41:41 +0000

It was definitely decisive and you must give Putin credit for effectiveness. You are right that we were probably lucky that we had Putin in control and had his intelligence and insight to balance Bush/Cheney.