Iowa caucuses

What a thriller the Iowa caucuses last night turned out to be! And my prayers were almost heard! Almost! :-) Mitt Romney won Iowa by 8 more votes than Rick Santorum (30,015 vs. 30.007)! Romney won 24,6% of the votes, Santorum got 24,5%, Ron Paul 21,4%, Newt Gingrich 13,3%, Rick Perry 10,3%, the Norwegian-American Michele Bachmann 5%, Jon Huntsman 0,6% (but he didn't spend much time in Iowa if any at all), 0,1% had no preference (135 people), 0,1% voted for other candidates (who?), while Herman Cain, who suspended his campaign last month, got 58 votes. All according to Des Moines Register.

Iowa's Republican party only provides 28 delegates to the party convention in August. The caucus is said to give one or more candidates a boost before the later primaries, but is not necessarily that important after all. John McCain became no. 4 in 2008, but made a great comeback in New Hampshire and never really looked back. Not that I think Gingrich will follow in McCain's footsteps. According to the polls (source Real Clear Politics) he is still in the lead in South Carolina and Florida, but Gingrich's popularity has dropped since the polls took place and even if he might still do relatively well in those states, it will not be enough to stop Romney's parade towards August victory.

Even if Romney just about won Iowa, one could say that Santorum became "the true winner" if one considers how far behind he was in the polls only a couple of weeks ago. His "barnstorming" (how I love this expression!) of Iowa paid off. He will enjoy the sun for a while, and it will be interesting to see how much he can climb in popularity in South Carolina and Florida, but most commentaries today don't believe in his future beyond that.

I still haven't found any website which shows the GOP delegate count after the Iowa caucus. That could be because the delegates are not formally elected yet. The path goes from the precinct caucuses via the county and district conventions to the Iowa state convention, which actually chooses the delegates. In theory they are unbound from the results of the precinct caucuses. So different election system from I am used to here in Norway, but very fascinating! If the delegates were bound to follow the results, Romney and Santorum would have won 7 each, Paul 6, Gingrich 4, Perry 3 and Bachmann 1. If I have got the math right, that is!

Michele Bachmann, who was born in Iowa and represent the neighbour state Minnesota in the US House of Representatives, decided to suspend her campaign today, just as I predicted yesterday. There were rumours earlier today that Perry was about to give up as well, but he has decided to go on. It will probably not last for long, though.

The New Hampshire primary takes place on 10 January 2012. As I have already commented on, Romney is sure to win, and the question is only how big the percentage will be. 45% perhaps? And can Jon Huntsman create a few headlines? Time will show. I will not be able to blog about every primary or caucus this spring - and of course there are other bloggers who will write far better comments and analysis than I can - but you can be sure that I will continue to follow the campaign with great interest!

The only thing I wonder about is how to get photos (free of use) of the various candidates? I have checked their websites, but not found pages which includes photos "in the public domain". Anyone who can help me out? E-mails and tweets to Romney's campaign office has not helped so far... The blog could need some illustrations in connection with my US elections comments.

Updated on Thursday 5 January 2012 at 15.45 (subject title).

US Presidential Election 2012, Iowa caucuses

Finally the day has come! The US Presidential Election 2012 opens with the Iowa caucus tonight. As I have written earlier, I am very interested in US politics and have looked forward to this year's campaign for a long time.

The former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has more or less been campaigning ever since he lost the GOP nomination in 2008 to John McCain, and many consider him to be «the next in line» to front the party in this year's election. He is supported by the majority of the Republican establishment, he is in the lead among the Republican candidates concerning fundraising, he has solid business experience which surely will be helpful and the polls show that he has the greatest chance to beat President Barack Obama.

It is of course far too early to predict who will win the election in November, but as of now I think the chances of Mitt Romney becoming the next US President is greater than that Obama will be re-elected. The economy is the main reason for this. According to Cafferty File no president since Roosevelt has won re-election with unemployment over 7.2% The current rate is today 8.6%, and no-one seriously expects that it will be anywhere near 7.2% in November. But if the economy shows signs of improvement in the fall, Obama might surprise us after all.

The GOP campaign has been interesting to watch the last few months. Romney is obviously one of the Republican candidates closest to the political center, and for the Republican (Christian-Conservative) right he is just not conservative enough. The «anyone but Mitt» slogan has dominated in the GOP campaign so far, where more conservative politicians, supported by the Tea Party, have give given Romney a true challenge for a while but then slipped behind again – Pawlenty, Bachmann, Perry, Cain and Gingrich have all come and gone. Romney's position has not weakened. Tonight only Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum have a chance to win the Iowa caucus, and to keep some excitement a few more weeks I almost hope that Santorum will win the majority of delegates!

Romney doesn't need to win tonight, he is certain to win in New Hampshire and will probably take South Carolina unless Santorum's campaign should catch more wind if he does well tonight. Gingrich shouldn't be ruled out completely, but as I have already hinted I would be really surprised if Romney doesn't win the nomination in the end. It will be more exciting to see who he will choose as his VP candidate. He might have to pick a more conservative partner in order to please the right wing of his party, but the VP can't be too conservative either as it would surely scare off too many of the independent, centrist votes. I will come back to this later on.

The results of the Iowa caucus is expected to be ready around 3 a.m. Norwegian time. I would love to stay up to follow the news as the results come in, but as my 17 months old daughter has not given me the best sleep the last couple of nights, I will have to wait until tomorrow to get the latest news of the campaign. I plan to visit the United States in the summer and really hope that I will be able to follow the election campaign more closely then.

I have to include some genealogy in this article as well. It is after all one of my main interests. Fortunately the website of the genealogist William A. Reitwiesner, who died in 2010, is still in existence. At his website Wargs.com you can find the ancestry tables of Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich. Rick Santorum is not listed, but you can find some details here and here. I have blogged about Michele Bachmann, née Amble, earlier. I haven't had the time yet to do more research on her Norwegian ancestry, but you will find some details here, here and here. One of Rick Perry's great-great grandfathers was a Choctaw (Native American) according to this page. Yet another page with information on his ancestry can be found here. And finally, go here for a collection of the presidential candidates' ancestries. I can of course not speak for the accuracy of information given at the various websites I have provided links to.

Updated on Thursday 5 January 2012 at 15.45 (subject title).

Merry Christmas!

There were some shepherds in that
part of the country who were spending the
night in the fields, taking care of their
flocks. An angel of the Lord appeared
to them, and the glory of the Lord shone
over them. They were terribly afraid, but
the angel said to them, "Don't be afraid!
I am here with good news for you,
which will bring great joy to all the people.
This very day in David's town your
Saviour was born - Christ the Lord!
And this is what will prove it to you:
you will find a baby wrapped in strips
of cloth and lying in a manger."
Suddenly a great army of heaven's
angels appeared with the angel, singing
praises to God:
"Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and peace on earth to those with
whom he is pleased!"

(Luke 2, 8-14)

***

I wish you all a Merry Christmas!

Royalty Digest Quarterly no. 4, 2011

Oh, isn't it just wonderful! Two days before Christmas the latest issue of Royalty Digest Quarterly arrived in my mailbox. Great timing! Tonight I have just looked quickly through it in order to make this little presentation of its contents, and look forward to reading it more carefully when I leave for Kristiansand and Mandal tomorrow evening.

The front cover of Royalty Digest Quarterly no. 4, 2011 shows a photo taken around 1904 of six Saxe-Meiningen siblings, and their ducal house is dealt with later in the issue. The magazine editor, Ted Rosvall, not surprisingly comments on the proposal to change the British Act of Settlement (succession law) in his editioral column and is like your sincerely in favour of the idea of letting the eldest child inherit the throne regardless of sex.

The Polish Lucas Szkopinski has - just like I have - a great interest in the former Balkan monarchies, and this time he has delivered the article Alexander and Drage. Love and death in Belgrade, which of course deals with the last Obrenovic king and queen of Serbia, who were killed in 1903.

The next man out is the Brazilian Alberto Penna Rodriguez, whose contribution this time is called The forgotten Infanta. Dona Maria Adelaide of Braganza (Mrs. van Uden), who will celebrate her 100th birthday on 31 January 2012. She was the youngest child of the Miguelist pretender to the Portuguese throne Dom Miguel (II) and his second wife Maria Teresa, née Princess of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. Dona Maria Adelaide is an aunt of the current Portuguese pretender, Dom Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza. She married in 1945 the Dutch man Nicolaas van Uden and they got five children. Nicolaas died in 1991.

RDQ's historical consultant Charlotte Zeepvat is as usual responsible of A Family Album, which as already suggested gives an illustrated presentation of the ducal house of Saxe-Meiningen. Besides the 2 pages' long presentation and photos of Schloss Elisabethenburg and Schloss und Veste Heldburg, the reader can enjoy 16 pages with 59 photos of various family members as well as one photo of the family's summer palace Schloss Altenstein, as well as two pages with genealogical tables.

Archduke Otto of Austria (Otto von Habsburg) died on 4 July this year, and this is marked by two articles - An Imperial Farewell. Funeral Ceremonies of Otto von Habsburg by Stefan Haderer and An Autumn Wedding by Michael Nash (the latter article is about Archduke Otto's parents' wedding, it should be added).

The historian Trond Norén Isaksen gives an account of The oldest of the Bernadottes - Elsa Cedergren (1893-1996), followed by Charlotte Zeepvat second (but not last) contribution, Prelude to a Winter Wedding. The article deals with the 8 January 1930 wedding between the then Prince of Piedmont, later King Umberto II of Italy, and Princess Marie José, daughter of King Albert I and Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians. The last main article of this issue is written by Netty Leistra, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands (1911-2004). A long and interesting life.

The editor has made space for three book reviews this time, and Trond Norén Isaksen has written two of them. His first review is of Philip Eade's book Young Prince Philip. His Turbulent Early Life, which I mentioned in my article England weekend October 2011 and which also Isaksen has commented on, and his second deals with Ilana D. Miller's The Four Graces. Queen Victoria's Hessian Granddaughters. Interestingly enough Charlotte Zepvaat returns with a second opinion of the same book.

As usual the Royalty Digest Quarterly gives the latest news of the royal world (or rather royal Europe) in the column The World Wide Web of Royalty. You can also find information about the forthcoming Royalty Weekend, which takes place in Ticehurst, East Sussex on 14-15 April 2012 (I attended the RW 2011, which I have written about here). Finally you can also find an advertisement of the book Hvidøre. A Royal Retreat, which is to be published in March 2012. Coryne Hall and Senta Driver are the authors. The villa Hvidøre on the Danish coast was once owned by the Danish-born Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom and her sister, Empress Maria Feodorovna, née Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Well, she was actually born a Princess of Glücksburg, when I come to think of it.

In other words, plenty of reading when my plane takes off tomorrow evening!

Royalty Digest Quarterly is published by Roosvall Royal Books, which can be contacted by e-mail royalbooks[at]telia.com.

See earler presentations of RDQ here.

Updated on Sunday 1 January 2012 at 20.15 (link added), last time Monday 9 January 2012 at 08.30 (one sentence modified).

A cemetery in Lindos, Rhodes, Greece

During my visit to Lindos at the Greek island of Rhodes back in October this year, I came over this small cemetery on the way up to the main road and bus station. The gate was closed, so I couldn't get better pictures than these. At the other side of the road there was a rather angry goat which I feared could attack me any minute, so I didn't stay long outside the gate!

Norwegian news in English

I have earlier written about two online newspapers which publish news about and from Norway in English - Views and News from Norway and The Foreigner (go here and here).

Recently I discovered that The Local earlier this fall launched a Norwegian version. The news portal also has similar English-speaking editions for France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland.

Yet another online news site, "written in English, dedicated to Norwegian affairs at home and abroad", cf. the news site's own presentation, is Norway News.

Although not a news site, Norway.org - the Norwegian official site in the United States - is also a good source for news about Norwegian affairs.

New book for King Harald of Norway's 75th birthday: "Idrettskongen" ("The Sports King")

Dag Erik Pedersen's book Idrettskongen ("The Sports King") is to be launched in connection with King Harald V's 75th birthday on 21 February next year, Dagbladet.no revealed in the article Kongen håndplukket Dag Erik til bokprosjekt ("The king hand-picked Dag Erik for [the] book project") yesterday.

The book is meant to cover King Harald's commitment to and great interest in sports, both as an athlete, spectator and as a protector. The king is the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NIF)'s protector and is still an active yachtsman. In 1987 King Harald and his crew won the World Championships with his one-tonne yacht, the Fram X, and in 2005 they won the European Championships with the Fram XV. The King remains an avid yachtsman, participating in national and international regattas each year, cf. his biography at Kongehuset.no.

The king has on several times been described by his wife as a "sportsidiot" ("mad on sports", "sports crazy"), so even if there might be some sports that he finds more interesting than others, his frequent attendance at sports events in Norway and abroad is certainly not because of duty. His knowledge about Norwegian and international sports is said to be impressive. - You can interview any Norwegian athlete, and everyone will tell you that the king was present at the greatest moment of their career, the author says to Dagbladet.no.

Dag Erik Pedersen works as a sports journalist for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) and is a former professional cyclist. In 1999 he produced a TV documentary with the same title as the book, Idrettskongen. According to VG.no 10 December 2011, Pedersen asked the king if he would be interested in contributing to the book during the Olympic Winter Games in Torino in 2006. Dagbladet.no on the other hand claims that it was the king who wanted Pedersen to write the authorised book.

The book will be sold in the book stores as well as by the athletic clubs, which will get some of the profit.

The publisher is Gyldendal Norsk Forlag. ISBN: 9788205422803
(820542280X). Price: NOK 399. Expected to be on sale from 14 February 2012.

Updated on Tuesday 13 December 2011 at 22.00 (paragraph about the publishers added).