megaspora » USA 2008 Election

USA 2008 Election

By: psr | 2008-11-04

I haven’t commented much about the election in USA in this blog. Lots has been said about it and about the two main candidates, McCain and Obama. The big news headlines, as always, did not discuss the issues and the actual political programmes of these two gentlemen. Likewise, the main reasons influencing people’s votes are rarely rooted in the actual political agenda. Instead, the campaign itself, the image and the three or four big sounding messages from each candidate are what drives a large number of people to decide their vote.

Polls predict Obama will win. Clearly there’s strong momentum for him to win. Many people prefer a younger candidate versus the older McCain; many like the idea of having a black President of the USA (this is racism), while others won’t vote for a black candidate (racism as well), and most will vote according to their beliefs. And then there’s the message. I acknowledge Obama’s message sounds very nice. I don’t see that much “change” as people assign to him, but the campaign around it was undoubtedly far more effective than McCain’s.

A couple of days ago I came across this pro-Obama video. I must say I liked it. However, if you look closely at the content of that video, there’s nothing in its political message that McCain does not endorse. It’s a video full of generic ideas, which almost everyone can agree to. In the video, it’s Obama who sends out that message, so naturally one would relate the message only to him.

Apparently it’s difficult to have an election consisting mostly of debates instead of political rallies and campaigns. I don’t know if the majority of people would be bored out of the election, but I believe that a campaign focused on discussion and debate would be far more beneficial to understand really what each candidate intends to do and how. If that were the case, my impression is that McCain would be leading the polls on this occasion.

This post does not intend to discuss programs in detail, but from what I’ve been able to gather about each candidate’s programs, the republican candidate’s program is the one that would bring more benefit for most people. Obama’s program is not necessarily bad (I would welcome his plans in Spain over the current Spanish government any minute). However, of the two options running for US President, I am convinced McCain would be the better one for the U.S. and the world.

Let’s wait and see what the U.S. decides tonight.