Posted on 03/02/2014 6:09:48 AM PST by A'elian' nation
The heiress and the harpist are running for mayor of Paris. The race is intriguing only because both candidates are women.
The race is all about image, and the voters know it. "Don't worry," says a passer-by overhearing the conversation. "It'll never happen.""
What will never happen is the promise of the harpist, a former Sarkozy minister, to convert ghost metro stations into swimming pools for the homeless. Kosciusko-Morizet earned her nickname of the harpist ever since being photographed for Paris Match lounging in an evening gown in a forest next to a harp "like some posh wood nymph."
Vying for that common woman image she was seen riding a free commuter Velib bicycle about the city, but someone noticed the 2,000 Euro designer handbag in her front basket.
The heiress (because she is the protege of the current mayor), Spanish born Anne Hidalgo, not to be outdone in reaching out to the little man, drives around in a people's black Smart car. Her Socialist platform includes transforming a one-time walkway for the wealthy into a "green corridor" for the masses. Hidalgo's official campaign poster is of a heavily retouched picture described by French PR veteran Jacques Séguéla as like "a L'Oréal advert for anti-wrinkle cream". Hillary take note.
Meanwhile the harpist, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet (NKM)dreams on about floating pools on the Seine. The laughs continue with the latest picture of her in "leather jacket and jeans smoking what looks like a rollup with a group of homeless men."
To which she was challenged, "Today you're posing like a model in company with people on the streets, pretending to be hanging out and sympathetic … your ambition doesn't allow you to use impoverished people."
Meanwhile the Parisian voter hearing the preposterous election promises simply shrugs, "It's crazy, it'll never happen."
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
The question is will it ever happen here? Will the hoi polloi ever start ridiculing their “bettors” who promise them free peaches and creme. Will the endless promises be seen for the empty pie crusts they are? Will hope be seen for the hyperbole it is?
Unfortunately, the Parisians do not seem to have much choice between two cynical image candidates. And increasingly familiar here as well, but in the States there is a fool born every minute.
You did not use the title of the article. Why not? What does a mayoral race in Paris between two weird women have to do with Americans and whether we’ll ever be this “smart and cynical” ?
So, a left-leftist versus a "center-right" leftist.
Altered title alert.
Should be:
The harpist or the heiress? Image is all in the race to be first woman mayor of Paris
“Swimming pools for the homeless” - why does bring to mind images of Bill Murray and a scene from “Caddyshack”?
The Ruling Class is hidden from us. We do not know their names. We only know the people who are paid to distract us.
It shows about as starkly as you can get that politicians will say anything and somehow people buy into it except maybe in Paris. When will the suckers here become as sophisticated?
Yes the article is about the heiress and the harpist, but doesn’t take much to imagine Hillary as the heiress complete with vanishing creme.
Thanks for the pic lol
I agree harpist or heiress is a better title, but image is all in U.S. races too - and that was the point. When will the low information voter see past the hype, hope, and phoniness?
Probably never so long as the freebies keep coming.
Vacant metro stations in swimming pools for the homeless? WTF? Boy, I want to swim with homeless people in a pool.../s
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