Trudeau vs. Obama

Pierre Trudeau’s greatest achievements—bilingualism, multiculturalism and the Charter—aimed in large part at redressing imagined grievances, that is, harm done, not to us, but to others with whom we identify. Because people claiming such grievances can never truly be appeased, it may have been a mistake to try. It has certainly encouraged the syndrome, which is now pervasive. Richard Nielson

A comparison in growing up and experiences may shed some light into what is store for the Americans in  The Hope & Change movement that help bring him to power.

Both men are viewed as highly intelligent and lost their fathers at a very young age. Pierre lost his father in his teens. Barack in his childhood. Did this have an influence in shaping them? What were the other male role models around them.

Trudeau grew in a wealthy family unlike Obama.

Both men excelled in education, attended Harvard and passed their bar exams. Both of them had very little experience in the political class before entering public life.

A law professor at the University of Montreal, he had been a critic of the Liberal Party for fifteen years before deciding to join them and run for a seat in Parliament in the upcoming national elections. He won a seat in the riding of Town of Mount Royal on his first attempt.

Both men represented a change from the past of old traditional politics to large swaths of the voters. A sense of change and hope for a better fairer society.

The Liberals held a leadership convention in 1968 to replace the Prime Minister Lester Pearson and give the new leader adequate time before an election.

Both men were famous for keeping their cool.

Before his first term as Prime Minister, Trudeau has worked as a lawyer and law professor and had only three years of experience in public office

Some criticism against Obama was his lack of executive experience, but he did have more than three years in public office before winning the democratic contest and becoming the President of the United States.

Obama spent a great deal of time traveling across the United States in sharing his plan, his vision for the leadership and candidate for the Democrats. The favourite was Hilary Clinton and Obama was considered a long shot.

Both men garnered attention, locally, nationally, international stage through "Charisma" and a fawning press before their attainment of their final prize.

Trudeau mania that swept him into the leadership in 1968. The first election in  1972 may have not been enough to keep the Liberal PM, but  David Lewis, leader of the NDP made an offer Trudeau could not refuse a coalition to sustain his power. The Liberals barely won in 1972.The NDP propped up Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government in exchange for the implementation of NDP proposals such as the creation of Petro-Canada as a crown corporation. In 1974 David Lewis was rewarded with a loss of half his seats including his own on a swing of 2.40%.

Politics is about winning and holding onto power. The Liberals did a deal with David Lewis to hold power.

In the l972 federal election, Pierre Trudeau's Liberals won l09 seats to 107 for Robert Stanfield's Conservatives and needed the support of the NDP to stay in power. David Lewis of the NDP, in exchange for an NDP shopping list, agreed to support the Liberals without entering into a coalition. Trudeau yielded to stay in power.

There is plenty to criticize about the record of Pierre Trudeau but one thing that will stand to his credit for all time was his view that under no circumstances would he make deals with the separatist devil.- David Asper

It is too early to judge how history will measure Obama.

The spending priorities during the Trudeau years, the nationalization and foreign policy did create some serious problems. Socialism has retreated and is considered a failed economic theory.

China and India are adopting entrepreneur-capitalism to lift their poor. On May 25, 2010 Charles Schram appeared on Charlie Rose here.

Economic growth is critical to establishing social stability, which is the ultimate objective of these counterinsurgency campaigns and disaster-relief efforts. Various obstacles, such as insurgencies and inadequacies in infrastructure, have made economic development difficult in these countries, of course, but these difficulties cannot be blamed exclusively on such obstacles. A central element in the failure to establish robust economies in war-torn or disaster-stricken countries is the prevailing doctrine of international development, according to which strong economies cannot emerge in poor countries. -Expeditionary Economics

Some in the U.S. are suggesting the economic priorities of the Obama administration, Democratic controlled Senate, Congress are too Liberal, too vague in specifics to help solve the problems.