The Price Of Noble Failure

Yet another in what will likely be a number of "What was Noda Yoshihiko thinking?" posts.

Here is the chart from The Asahi Shimbun showing the change in the government's party politics subsidies, based upon the results of the December 16 election.

The Liberal Democratic Party will see its annual subsidy rise from 10.154 billion yen to 14.59 billion yen. The Democratic Party of Japan will see its subsidy fall from 16.504 billion yen to 8.558 billion yen.

If Noda had held off on calling the election until the new year, the DPJ would have been eligible for the full 16 billion yen subsidy, the calculation's being based upon a party's Diet membership on January 1.

Looks like another case of High Okadaism, a super-serious and ethical stance that leads to electoral catastrophe, so-named in honor of Deputy Prime Minister Okada Katsuya, whose nervously-gripping-the-steering-wheel-of-a-white-Toyota-Corolla campaign in 2005 got its doors blown off by Koizumi Jun'ichiro's red Lamborghini. Noda just could not bring himself to hold out for TWO WEEKS MORE, allowing the DPJ, whatever what might have happened to it in a 2013 election, to at least walk away with a huge bankroll for future contests.

Image Courtesy: The Asahi Shimbun