It's always difficult to compare US politics to France. However, there must be some Democrats reading the news reports coming from France.  By any account, the left lost big: "The Socialist losses were devastating. Although, as expected, the party hung on to Paris, where Anne Hidalgo becomes the capital’s first female mayor, the rest of the country snubbed the ruling party. Among the more dramatic losses were Toulouse, a city in the south-west that it had thought was safe, Roubaix  and Tourcoing, two industrial cities in the north with a deep left-wing heritage, and a string of other cities, including Amiens, Caen, Tours, Reims and Limoges, held by the left since 1912. Even some towns in the Paris region, which had been governed by Communist Party since the second world war, such as Villejuif, swung to the right. The centre-right UMP was the primary beneficiary of this disillusion, and of a high abstention rate. Overall, the second-round...(Read Full Post)