Election In A Nutshell

[Gringoboy]

Not long ago at a family lunch my brother in law spotted that I was wearing a new pair of Adidas trainers and asked 'Are they imported?'
I said I didn't know and frankly I didn't really care either, but it illustrates the mind set of Argentina.

 

[sesamosinsal]

Not long ago at a family lunch my brother in law spotted that I was wearing a new pair of Adidas trainers and asked 'Are they imported?'
I said I didn't know and frankly I didn't really care either, but it illustrates the mind set of Argentina.

I know what you're talking about. It's this sort of Argentine self-loathing. It goes way back: https://www.youtube....h?v=nZ_DqGEEm1U

And Capusotto illustrates the attitude quite well in his videos: https://youtu.be/129gCkk5hXA?t=40s

I was talking to a psychologist in my building about this (elevator chat led to a 20 minute conversation), and he believes it all has to do with nostalgic immigrants. In other words, generations grew up hearing their parents and grandparents talk about this and that in Italy, Spain or wherever they originally came from. As a result, this schizophrenic, hate-love attitude toward Argentina developed.

To me, it seems to be quite a good hypothesis because 1) most foreigners I know, myself included, complain about things in Argentina all the time, while at the same time indirectly or directly saying things are better in their home countries. And 2), the immigrants in this country are still relatively new. Here most people I meet tend to have another passport. None of my friends in the U.S. have dual citizenship.

Who knows? Either way, it's an attitude that has to change. My country prints the reserve currency, and thus has to run constant trade deficits. The global crisis we're in right now is that the U.S. trade deficit is decreasing, which is bad for the global economy. Argentina and most other countries do not have this "luxury."

 

[Gringoboy]

And when I first arrived here, Adri told me that most Argentines keep a few thousand dollars under their bed in case they need to make a quick exit across the border.
I thought she was joking at first, but she wasn't.

 

[Rich One]

Massa pretty much said he will go with Macri without actually saying so.
He said the word cambio countless times, cracked a dig at CFK about the microphones and made it pretty clear how much le loathes the Kirchnerites.
http://www.lanacion....esita-un-cambio

Massas Voters have 4 options... Vote Scioli, Massa , en Blanco. don't vote.

 

[nicoenarg]

Massas Voters have 4 options... Vote Scioli, Massa , en Blanco. don't vote.

Yeah thats not how it is. While I'm expecting a lot of Massa's voters will vote Scioli, Macri is a very legitimate choice for them as well.

 

[garryl]

And when I first arrived here, Adri told me that most Argentines keep a few thousand dollars under their bed in case they need to make a quick exit across the border.
I thought she was joking at first, but she wasn't.

Entonces, Argentines have more $ than yankees, many Americans have no saving, sometimes ask employers to pay earlier so they can go on vacations. It's much better now after 2009 crisis, they learn to save.

 

[garryl]

Yeah thats not how it is. While I'm expecting a lot of Massa's voters will vote Scioli, Macri is a very legitimate choice for them as well.

Macri should give a cabinet position Massa.
A politician can stink like a fish quickly, usually 2-3 years, people are tired of him/her. After 12 years, CFK smells like a rotten fish to many Argentines.
If I were her, I would step down, take my money and run.

 

[TWB103]

Im sure the money is not her primary motivation. She loves the sound of her own voice and ideas, the fight and confrontation, and of course the power, adulation and being the saviour.

 

[Matiasba]

I know what you're talking about. It's this sort of Argentine self-loathing. It goes way back: https://www.youtube....h?v=nZ_DqGEEm1U

And Capusotto illustrates the attitude quite well in his videos: https://youtu.be/129gCkk5hXA?t=40s

I was talking to a psychologist in my building about this (elevator chat led to a 20 minute conversation), and he believes it all has to do with nostalgic immigrants. In other words, generations grew up hearing their parents and grandparents talk about this and that in Italy, Spain or wherever they originally came from. As a result, this schizophrenic, hate-love attitude toward Argentina developed.

To me, it seems to be quite a good hypothesis because 1) most foreigners I know, myself included, complain about things in Argentina all the time, while at the same time indirectly or directly saying things are better in their home countries. And 2), the immigrants in this country are still relatively new. Here most people I meet tend to have another passport. None of my friends in the U.S. have dual citizenship.

Who knows? Either way, it's an attitude that has to change. My country prints the reserve currency, and thus has to run constant trade deficits. The global crisis we're in right now is that the U.S. trade deficit is decreasing, which is bad for the global economy. Argentina and most other countries do not have this "luxury."

I think that attitude of nostalgie, malancholy, the complainng (as Mafalda says, a national sport) sooooooo Porteña (more than argentine), very present in Tango lyrics, etc, it is based in the greatness or potential this country had (and we can argue, still has), lots of people came here to do L America, they came full of dreams, with lots of promises, with lots of expectations.... and they failed!!!

 

[ElQueso]

I was reading some today and saw a couple of comments where people are saying that it's more likely that Massa's voters will vote for Macri than for Scioli because most of Massa's supporters were voting for Massa for change, but not Macri's kind of change.

Meanwhile, our oldest comes home from UADE today and ask me "did you see? It's official - Massa has given his support to Macri." That surprised me a bit, because I thought that would be headlines pretty quickly and I didn't see that anywhere. The only things I saw were excerpts from Massa's speech last night where he denounced Cristina and her politics repeatedly and basically seemed to be saying that if he was going to support Scioli Scioli would have to distance himself from Cristina, not be Cristina's employee, so on and so forth, that Massa is 100% for change. I never saw anywhere where Massa came out and said he was now supporting Macri I asked her where she saw or heard that Massa had actually come out in support of Macri. She told me she saw it on the news, a headline in a restaurant they were eating at in the school building.

So I do some searching and the most I could find in that vein was a comment from Taringa (I'm sure there were others), a paragraph of which reads:

No será un apoyo explícito a Mauricio Macri, pero varios de los puntos del documento que Sergio Massa presentará esta tarde en un hotel de Puerto Madero podrán leerse en clave de "cambio".

Then I saw a comment by Felipe Solá that says

A los peronistas nos cuesta mucho votar a Macri

and then

que el Frente para la Victoria "es un despelote"

Seems to me that Massa may be trying to put pressure on Scioli to get away from Cristina. Given the votes that the FpV didn't get (when they were expecting a huge mandate, it seems), I'm wondering if maybe Scioli would feel confident enough to come to some kind of deal with Massa now that he sees that the voters weren't all that ready to go with Cristina's brand of politics again.

Of course, there's a couple of items that I'm not so clear on.

1) How much does Massa really think that Scioli is an idiot and unable to govern? I.e., how much of what he's previously said about Scioli was making sure that Cristina (or her party) didn't get the vote and now that he was able to draw some 21+% of the vote, feels he has a sufficient bargaining point to force Scioli to distance himself from Cristina and come out as his own candidate?

2) FpV still has 177 representatives (46%) and 42 senators (58%) in congress. Of course, this is still a huge number of seats for one party. But these seats are also listed as "FpV and Allies". How much of this is going to affect Massa's decision as to even whether or not Scioli could break away from Cristina? Or, alternatively, what are the possibilities that "and Allies" will break away from the FpV bloc and loosen FpV's current majority and near majority in the two different chambers? If he supports Macri and Macri can't make any changes because of FpV's possible control of congress (not to mention possible control of judges and the huge bureaucracy Cristina leaves behind), how will he look in the future as far as having supported PRO against a party who ostensibly calls itself peronist (at least based on, if extreme), particularly if Macri falls all over himself and ends up making things worse? How tight is FpV's alliance in congress still?

3) I've seen a number of comments by people saying that Massa's voters are not true Peronists, but rather people who want a change and couldn't vote Macri (not understanding that one, truthfully) or that too many of Massa's voters couldn't find themselves voting for Macri due to their fear of his "menemismo" and the majority would vote for Scioli. Either way, the big quesiton is, how many of Massa's voters would vote for Macri even if Massa declared outright support for Macri?

4) How much of Scioli's problems are real, and possibly simply wishfull thinking on the part of Macri supporters?

Anyway, to me, this is where I start having problems trying to figure out what the likely outcome to the runoff would be. I'd like to think that support for Macri and his policies are real, that fear of Cristina is real enough to make a real change, but this is Argentina and there are at least a few things that I do not understand enough of the nuances here to be able to have any kind of opinion as to what things may look like, realistically.