State News

Chris Christie (R) and Steve Lonegan (R) campaigned throughout New Jersey ahead of their Republican gubernatorial primary tomorrow.

The New York Times said both men were "scrounging for people who will show up for the primary election on Tuesday and telling them their votes would matter that much more."

Said Christie: "Our biggest challenge, as we're 72 hours away from this election, is no longer Steve Lonegan. The biggest challenge we face is complacency."

Christie has led in nearly every poll and is the favorite, but Lonegan is thought to be more popular among the conservative Republican base.

How Canadian can you get?

The Finance Minister understates the deficit by $16 billion. Do we get mad?

Nah. The guy's doing his best. Let's give him another chance.

Canadian Press:

OTTAWA - Canadians appear to be willing to cut Finance Minister Jim Flaherty a little slack over his deficit shocker.

A Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll shows few Canadians think the
finance minister should resign just because he made a $16-billion
mistake on his deficit projection.

The survey of 1,000 people finds only 28 per cent who want Flaherty to
step down, while 59 per cent think he should stay on the job.

Even among Liberal supporters, 54 per cent don't think he should lose
his position because the budget deficit has ballooned to more than $50
billion - not the $34 billion predicted in the budget four months ago.

I arrived in Aarhus, Denmark, two weeks ago with the strange feeling that I had really not left Toronto. Tamil demonstrators, waving Tiger flags, banging drums and chanting incomprehensibly, blocked traffic in front of the railway station. A few days later in Copenhagen, their leader dead, their resistance in Sri Lanka at an end, Tamils were chanting "U. S. A., U. S. A." in front of the American embassy. Polyglot Denmark is not, but multiculturalism is present everywhere in the cities.

Most of it is benign and hopeful. There are mixed race children playing happily together in both Aarhus and Copenhagen, teenagers moving in packs and black and white couples walking with small children. There are women in chadors and Muslim men with beards, halal meat shops and kebabs for sale everywhere. But after the controversy over the Muhammad cartoons, there is substantial unease among many Danes. When the cartoons were published in 2006, they were frightened by the rage directed against them in the Muslim world--and the hints of violence they detected from the 4% of the Danish population who are Muslim.

And they worried about the threat to freedom of speech posed by the controversy. More recently, they bitterly resented Muslim Turkey's attempt, in response to the cartoon controversy, to block the Danish Prime Minister from becoming secretary-general of NATO. Only in the face of Danish resistance will Turkey now make it into membership in the European community.

Many Danes look to Canada as a model of multiculturalism -- a country that they believe got it right. But even if almost everyone speaks English, few know much about Canada, and certainly they know nothing about this nation's problems in integrating immigrants or the difficulties with our refugee system. Still, when compared to racial and religious tensions in Britain, France, the Netherlands and Denmark, Canada's multiculturalism looks like a great success.

What does seem clear is that the European community has been good to Denmark, even if the Danes have thus far refused to adopt the Euro as their currency. The tiny nation's GDP per capita in 2008 was $66,760 (well above Canada's at $48,427), and welfare benefits are generous, so much so that most Danes label their welfare state as their country's defining characteristic. Many cynics might declare that Denmark's taxes --"the highest anywhere," I was repeatedly told -- are the true defining fact (and this tax burden is largely responsible for complaints about the costs of trying to integrate immigrants). But the Danish medical care system is good, the emergency room lineups relatively short and cancer operations in first-class hospitals, for example, can be scheduled and performed quickly and well. (Nonetheless, private hospitals advertise their up-to-date facilities at pleasant locations on the coast.) Even more extraordinarily, university students who make it to higher education after tough competition for places get free tuition and a stipend.

Graduate students get the same, and their stipend is enough to live on, no matter their subject of study.

The only drawback in this halcyon paradise? Everything is ridiculously expensive -- notably clothing (though women are nonetheless stylishly dressed), restaurant meals and alcohol. Copenhagen has a number of two-star Michelin restaurants, but there seems a large gulf between the hot young chefs and most of the rest. The food here is good but simple, though fresh fish seems available everywhere and Danish pork, proudly labelled as such, appears on almost every menu. The pastries are good, the breads wonderful.

Unfortunately, a half-pint of Carlsberg costs around 30 kroner ($6.50) and a glass of Italian plonk will run about $12. With gasoline selling for almost 10 kroner a litre, taxi meters in Aarhus start at 30 kronor and even a short trip will hit $25.

On the other hand, the public transit system is first rate, with bus networks and subways operating in Copenhagen and an efficient rail network reaching into the country. If they're not riding their bicycles around town, people will commute a hundred kilometres to get to work and do so without a qualm. Likewise, Swedes take the train from Malmo, just a bridge away from Copenhagen, to work. Danes, in return, go to Malmo to buy houses and apartments, which are much cheaper there than in Copenhagen.

Occupied without a fight by the Nazis in 1940, Denmark drew the appropriate lessons and joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a founding member. It despatched troops to Iraq, and has some 700 soldiers in Afghanistan's difficult Helmand Province. The Danish casualty rate is comparable to Canada's, and people I spoke too worried that the Afghan mission's aims were hopelessly muddled. Others noted that Denmark, proud of its peacekeeping record, had trouble dealing with combat and its costs.

In other words, Denmark is much like Canada on the important issues. Politicians brag about Denmark punching above its weight, but ordinary Danes worry about the economy and the strains posed to the polity by immigration and wonder if their taxes can possibly go any higher.

But it's a sweet life for now, everyone sitting outside at cafes in the sun or lying stretched out in Copenhagen's superb parks. There really is nothing rotten in the state of Denmark.

Historian J. L. Granatstein writes for the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

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About the Author: P.J. Crowley serves as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.

Last week, I began my tenure as the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs.  I am humbled and exhilarated by the task before me and am grateful for the trust and confidence President Obama and Secretary Clinton have placed in me.

Almost 20 years ago, I was assigned to Germany, one of the highlights of my 26 years serving with the U.S. Air Force.  I have been contemplating those days as I prepared for this assignment.  During my time in Germany, the Berlin Wall ceased to divide East from West.  The people of East and West Germany literally pushed until the wall was breached and ultimately removed.

In the aftermath, when given a choice, the people of Eastern Europe rejected Communism and moved swiftly to associate themselves with the rule of law, market economies and responsible and accountable governments.  This success was due in no small measure to institutions like the United States Information Agency, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, which helped foreign publics understand that they could have the rights and opportunities of free people.  This was public diplomacy at its best, and proved to be a cornerstone of our policy of containment.  Now, Secretary Clinton’s focus on using smart power – the full compliment of diplomatic, economic, military, political, legal, and cultural tools is leading us back to a balanced approach to foreign policy that served us well throughout our history.

As we know, global challenges hardly disappeared with the end of the Cold War.  Today, we continue to combat extreme ideologies in an expanding conflict in Afghanistan while dealing with festering violence in Iraq.  Success in this current struggle will require the same kind of patience, determination and skill that we demonstrated during the Cold War – identifying a clear, peaceful and modern alternative to the people of the world, reinforcing our strategic narrative while diminishing that of extremist insurgents.  As Secretary Clinton stated in her recent testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the State Department is seeking the resources to deploy a new strategic communication strategy to buttress our foreign policy.  Ultimately, we cannot succeed unless we build and sustain public support at home and around the world.

Today’s global communications environment is dramatically different than it was even a few years ago.  A digital image can be transmitted from anywhere in the world at an instant, as we saw with the cell phone image of the execution of Saddam Hussein and its impact.

One of my goals is to have the State Department communicate its message more strategically.  In order to do this, we must be dynamic and use all available means both old and new media - traditional methods such as the Daily Press Briefings as well as experimenting with new media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and video through the Internet.  The culmination of this effort will be a virtual presence that is engaged in a global dialogue, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in all corners of the world.

Given the expanded nature of the communications environment, Secretary Clinton decided to restructure the Bureau of Public Affairs.  I will serve as the Assistant Secretary, but not as the every day spokesman for the department.  One of my foremost responsibilities will be to ensure that public affairs informs public policy.  This is why you’ll hear me repeatedly coming back to the idea of a strategic communications plan.  My task, working with Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale and the newly designated spokesman, Ian Kelly, will be to serve as the senior advisor to the Secretary, contribute to the administration’s interagency strategic planning and lead the Bureau of Public Affairs and the dedicated public affairs professionals at the State Department and around the world.  I am an avid Red Sox fan.  Judith is a Yankees fan and Ian, a Cubs fan, but we are united by a higher calling and significant challenges.

Tackling these global challenges – extremism, nonproliferation, climate change, global health and food security just to name a few – will require, as Secretary Clinton has said repeatedly, coordinated, international partnerships at the government-to-government and people-to-people levels and all variations in between.  In order to build and sustain such partnerships, we must communicate effectively.  Effective communication is a two-way street, so as much as I look forward to keeping you informed on new initiatives, I’m even more eager to hear your ideas.