Mr Persson may fear that if he campaigns strongly for a yes vote but is handed a no, his own standing will be damaged.
But it will be too late to save the prime minister from the damage that has already been inflicted on the government coalition and his own standing with hard-pressed voters.
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Mr. TERRY MADONNA (Director, Keystone Poll): The senator has scratched and literally clawed his way back into this race, not so much by improving his own standing with the voters of the state, but rather by sort of pulling Casey down to him.
Given the Palestinian position, and indeed his own poor standing in Israeli polls, all this may seem fanciful.
"He'd be seeing them in his own mind, standing in front of him, " says his stepmother, Marianne.
As NPR's Don Gonyea reports, Cheney does so at a time when his own credibility and standing have declined with the American public.
It eventually becomes apparent, though, that Sonny is just as interested in rescuing his own soul from its very iffy standing with the Lord as he is in saving those less fortunate than himself.
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Yet the knocks to his standing are partly of his own making.
He spearheaded its success at the 2009 European elections and raised UKIP's profile, but then surprised his own party conference in September 2009 by standing down as leader.
Knight has a long-standing working relationship with the club while he also runs his own catering firm.
Yet if Bush was prevented by external obstacles from acting on this assessment, the obstacles standing in the way of Barack Obama are lodged within his own mind and heart.
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Most feel like a last fling before the end of a long-standing romance and Matt LeBlanc should think long and hard before deciding on his own spin-off.
The eurozone crisis improved UKIP's standing in the polls and the prime minister had no option but to ignore his own warning not to "bang on about Europe".
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