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[/floatr]I had thought about posting the picture on the right earlier. It's the recently-elected LDP leader Sadakazu Tanigaki who wanted to emphasize his back-to-basics, man-of-the-people credentials by getting on his bicycle and riding around to visit voters. He does appear to genuinely like cycling and has participated in a few road tours in his time. Nevertheless, it still seemed like one of the stunts the LDP PR team likes to dream up for their leaders such as when they portrayed Taro Aso as a big manga and anime fan. Anyway, it slipped my mind until today when I read that Tanigaki has returned to politics after 9 days off. Perhaps you didn't know he had gone so you might be surprised to learn that the reason he disappeared is because he crashed into another bike while cycling near the Tama River and hurt himself. It was widely reported but I must have assumed it was just more coverage of his bicycle campaign. It's not nice to laugh at someone having an accident, and it does appear that he took a bad knock. but there is a wry irony in the former governing party strategists being hoist by their own petard. A sympathetic Shizuka Kamei is reported to have said there's nothing special about riding a bike in public and said that's why there's no surprise the LDP was "toppled".
