Third-party candidate Ko Wen-je has been surging into second place in the polls by going into Gadfly Mode. But can serving up straight-talk take him all the way to the top?
Hello Angelica, how's/was France ? ;) other than that, I might live in a bubble and it is a very subjective question: do your friends, family or acquaintances actually support Kuo? You don't need to go into details but I would be very interested if you could share some (subjective of course) observations. I have one KMT friend that will vote for him, other than that, I can't think of anyone - or perhaps I don't have many friends, that's something else. Cheers!
Maybe you don't have many younger friends? That is his strongest constituency. Amongst my friends the pro-DPP are utterly disgusted with him while pro-nuclear folks quite support him (not all of course.)
Spot on! I don't really hang out with 20-30 yr old Taiwanese so the "young ones" are those of the Sunflower cohort, who tend to keep being green (even disillusioned) and have a strong rejection of Ko. Then you have the technocrat type that find him interesting-but no idea about the young vote and that is indeed interesting (in my own mental matrix, young=green but that's because it was like that in my early years here in Taiwan). I am personally curious about the prospect of Ko as president with a green-leaning Lifa Yuan, but it too early to really think of anything
Too early indeed but if you JUST ask the under 40s it would be Ko in a landslide. Lai will be the first DPP presidential candidate not to have the youth vote!
Nice article Angelina! Just curious, do you foresee the possibility of the KMT pulling out Hou and running someone else instead like in 2016? If so or not, why?
No. The reason is Ma-era legendary political operative King Pu-tsung has thrown his weight behind Hou. This is the advisor who has supposedly never lost an election and has huge clout in the party. Of course, huge doubt if he can make a turkey like Hou fly, but it quiets calls for Hou to be pulled and sucks the wind out of Terry Guo's sails.
Ahhhhh, didn’t know that, but I do think there’s an additional element that Gou and Ko would probably seize similar voting bases (Hou seems to have issues winning the deep-blue vote), and that assuming by some miracle Hou can weather that kindergarten drugging scandal (he’s not doing too hot currently) he can regain his second place... but long way to go, we’ll see... Seems that Lai hasn’t tanked too hard from the MeToo scandals though!
Hello Angelica, how's/was France ? ;) other than that, I might live in a bubble and it is a very subjective question: do your friends, family or acquaintances actually support Kuo? You don't need to go into details but I would be very interested if you could share some (subjective of course) observations. I have one KMT friend that will vote for him, other than that, I can't think of anyone - or perhaps I don't have many friends, that's something else. Cheers!
Maybe you don't have many younger friends? That is his strongest constituency. Amongst my friends the pro-DPP are utterly disgusted with him while pro-nuclear folks quite support him (not all of course.)
Spot on! I don't really hang out with 20-30 yr old Taiwanese so the "young ones" are those of the Sunflower cohort, who tend to keep being green (even disillusioned) and have a strong rejection of Ko. Then you have the technocrat type that find him interesting-but no idea about the young vote and that is indeed interesting (in my own mental matrix, young=green but that's because it was like that in my early years here in Taiwan). I am personally curious about the prospect of Ko as president with a green-leaning Lifa Yuan, but it too early to really think of anything
Too early indeed but if you JUST ask the under 40s it would be Ko in a landslide. Lai will be the first DPP presidential candidate not to have the youth vote!
Yes, and that makes me feel old! Let the almost-40 yr old crisis begins!
Nice article Angelina! Just curious, do you foresee the possibility of the KMT pulling out Hou and running someone else instead like in 2016? If so or not, why?
No. The reason is Ma-era legendary political operative King Pu-tsung has thrown his weight behind Hou. This is the advisor who has supposedly never lost an election and has huge clout in the party. Of course, huge doubt if he can make a turkey like Hou fly, but it quiets calls for Hou to be pulled and sucks the wind out of Terry Guo's sails.
Ahhhhh, didn’t know that, but I do think there’s an additional element that Gou and Ko would probably seize similar voting bases (Hou seems to have issues winning the deep-blue vote), and that assuming by some miracle Hou can weather that kindergarten drugging scandal (he’s not doing too hot currently) he can regain his second place... but long way to go, we’ll see... Seems that Lai hasn’t tanked too hard from the MeToo scandals though!