Watching the unfolding of the American elections, has been a fascinating and yet bewildering experience. Fascinating, for the closeness of the contest, with so many twists and turns at such an early stage. It seems bizarre to think this time next year, one of these candidates will be American President. The bewilderment comes from the complexities of the contest, the hype and media portrayal
It seems like every contest, caucus or primary or whatever they are called, there is a new comeback kid. It seems if you come second in a poll and then first, you've made a comeback. This seems a typical Americanism, surely any contest is like this, one person takes the lead, the other comes back, but its the sheer hype involved, pronouncing themselves “the comeback kid” before we even have got to “super Tuesday”.
The sad thing about the whole process, and this seems true of democracy as a whole, is that it only ever seems important to people, when the vote is so close. People seem to forget the premiss upon which democracy was founded, of those who fought and died for the right to vote. You need only look at Burma and similar countries to appreciate how good it is to have a say in who gets into government, but this seems so unappreciated.
Lastly I'll finish by casting my opinion on Barack Obama. He comes across as smart and savvy, he has obvious good media presence and is a good orator. I think that after the waiting America could finally have the man they want. That is unless they want a woman.
3 comments:
Even though it's really cool to hear a different perspective on the race as an American, I'm not sure I totally agree with everything that you've said.
I think Americans are really ready to be represented by someone they can stand behind without having their hand on their forehead. The media is definitely hyping up the tight race and the 'comeback' kid but that's more discussed in the media than in homes. People still just straight up care about the issues and being represented well and are as annoyed and overwhelmed by the process as the rest of the world. At this point, I really believe more people would be interested if it was more straightforward. But what do I know? I only represent the small part of America that I know.
By the way, nice to meet you. I'm Phil's girlfriend, but you can call me the hiphopopotamus.
I'm glad you have a blog, I think they're great.
Hi Lizzie,
Nice to meet you, Phil's mentioned you many times.
Cheers for commenting on the blog. Some interesting points, I think the media over here and hence my comments have focused more on personality politics than the actual issues.
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