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Updated Monday, January 25, 2010 10:13 am TWN, By David Ting, Special to the China Post

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A thunderbolt out of the 'blue'

Not surprisingly, President Barak Obama and his Democratic Party were caught off guard. Losing Massachusetts is more than a wake-up call. How could voters change heart so quickly? Only a year ago Obama was sworn into office with the promise of change and hope. Only a couple of months ago he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an extraordinary honor and high recognition for a president less than one year in office. But voters have become angry and impatient, believing he has failed to deliver.

Interestingly, Tuesday's “Mass protest” seemed to be a carbon copy of what had happened in Taiwan earlier this month. President Ma Ying-jeou and his Kuomintang (KMT) met their Waterloo in the same kind of special elections on Jan. 9, when the demoralized and dispirited opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won a landslide, taking all the three legislative seats up for grabs. President Ma, who was swept into office in 2008 for similar reasons that Obama was swept into office — by voters “who are angry and frustrated” — is facing the same crisis as Obama is in the United States (U.S.) — a “fickle” electorate and a political pendulum that is swinging in another direction. If they cannot turn things around, their parties will lose key elections later this year and their days in power will be numbered.

The KMT's blue territory has begun to shrink when it in fact should expand, due largely to the president's controversial leadership style and his inability to make difficult and unpopular decisions. He has squandered his overwhelming mandate and disappointed, if not betrayed, his supporters. Ma's blue thunder on Jan. 9, like Obama's last Tuesday, should be loud enough to wake him up from his dream of becoming everybody's president. The least Ma should do to avert another shock is to know what the people think and want, and not lose touch with the electorate.

First and foremost, he should get his own divided house in order by being a good communicator and integrator. If he, as chairman of the KMT, cannot field the blue camp's best candidates in November's five-metropolis election, against a resurrected DPP who think they are on a roll, the result may be a foregone conclusion.

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