"Doing so, however, has to be executed exactly to the right degree, otherwise it might backfire," Wu said.
Wu said that Ma's anger over the incident might have seemed like an overreaction, he did score some points with the public by making it look as though the Cabinet was giving him a hard time.
Accompanying Premier Yu Shyi-kun to inspect the river's dredging on Thursday, Ma expressed his hope that the Cabinet would grant the city a subsidy of NT$1.9 billion to dredge the part of the river that runs through the city, building levees along two of the river's tributaries and demolishing the 72-year-old Chungshan Bridge to reduce the risk of flooding.
Ma got the cold shoulder on the proposal, however, when Yu said that if Taipei City needed funding so badly, Ma should have brought up the issue during the weekly Cabinet affairs meeting rather than leaving two Cabinet meetings early.
Ma retorted that he tried to mention the issue during one of the meetings, but was told to wait, and that he told his substitute to explain the proposal when he had to leave the meetings early.
As for the Kaohsiung race, Wu said that it would be a tough fight.
"The `pan-blue' camp still stands a chance of winning, although it has not yet decided whether to jointly field a candidate to run in the race, and Shih may attract a few ballots from that camp and also from voters in the political middle," Wu said.
It will be to the advantage of the "pan-blue" camp if it can jointly field a candidate for Kaohsiung mayor, Wu said.
"Chang's not an astute politician although he's a smart individual and a well-accomplished surgeon," he said. "Besides, I doubt that Kaohsiung residents will appreciate the fact that he has had a hard time making up his mind whether to join the race and that he's been away from his native Kaohsiung for so long."
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