HUGE "OBAMA-STYLE" UPSET IN JAPANESE ELECTIONS

For many of us, events in Japan rarely penetrate our radar screens, but Matt Gurney's discussion of recent elections should capture our attention.  He writes:

Prime Minister-designate Yukio Hatoyama stands in stark contrast with his LDP predecessors. He considers himself a reformer, views capitalism with skepticism, wants to reform the mighty Japanese civil service, and seeks new relationships with America and Japan's Asian neighbors. During the short campaign, Hatoyama received veritable rock star treatment, and was at times surrounded by cheering supporters, an unheard of phenomenon in staid Japanese politics. With his calls for optimism, change, and reform, he has become something of a Japanese Obama, and young voters have enthusiastically rallied to his side. . .

With Japanese voters concerned about the stagnating economy, Hatoyama has found a convenient culprit to energize the public: free-market capitalism. In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, for instance, Hatoyama railed against “unrestrained market fundamentalism and financial capitalism” and blamed the recent economic crisis on “American-style” free-market economics.    [Read the whole thing. . .]