[IWE] Guardian take on US (S)elections

[Ashton Brown]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jonathanfreedland
(Jonathan Freedland: 4 years as DC correspondent.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/10/uselections2008.barackobama

> [...]
>
> If Sarah Palin defies the conventional wisdom that says elections are 
> determined by the top of the ticket, and somehow wins this for McCain, 
> what will be the reaction? Yes, blue-state America will go into 
> mourning once again, feeling estranged in its own country. A 
> generation of young Americans - who back Obama in big numbers - will 
> turn cynical, concluding that politics doesn't work after all. And, 
> most depressing, many African-Americans will decide that if even 
> Barack Obama - with all his conspicuous gifts - could not win, then no 
> black man can ever be elected president.
>
> But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. 
> For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any 
> American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, 
> Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, 
> with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin 
> America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it 
> handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be 
> Barack Obama.
>
> The crowd of 200,000 that rallied to hear him in Berlin in July did so 
> not only because of his charisma, but also because they know he, like 
> the majority of the world's population, opposed the Iraq war. McCain 
> supported it, peddling the lie that Saddam was linked to 9/11. 
> Non-Americans sense that Obama will not ride roughshod over the 
> international system but will treat alliances and global institutions 
> seriously: McCain wants to bypass the United Nations in favour of a 
> US-friendly League of Democracies. McCain might talk a good game on 
> climate change, but a repeated floor chant at the Republican 
> convention was "Drill, baby, drill!", as if the solution to global 
> warming were not a radical rethink of the US's entire energy system 
> but more offshore oil rigs.
>
> [...]

Oh well..