What do you mean, he's not president?

[andygates]

Obama's world tour is going great guns: they took him seriously in the Middle East and in Berlin two hundred thousand people turned out pretty much to anoint his feet with oil.  Two hundred thousand for a candidate they can't even elect.  Seems that he's pitching this as the Next Leader Of The Free World Tour and the rest of us out here in the world, we pretty much like that. 

Let's face it after eight years of Captain Catastrophe, Barney the frakking Dinosaur would be an improvement but I'm not seeing simple relief here, I'm seeing desperate relief and a thread of actual, genuine, Kennedy-flavoured optimism.  Crikey.

I wonder how much impact this will have on his electability in the US (you know, where his voters are)? 

Comments

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

well this voter isn't in the US. I like him better than the other guy. I will say that before moving to the UK, I spoke with some African Americans about Obama. The one said something that made me very sad, "Even if a black mane gets elected he'll just be assassinated." It will be difficult. I think Hillary had a better shot of being president. However, I've never voted for a person that won.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what he's doing, and it's clever. My (admittedly limited) experience of US Foreign Policy during elections seems to be a short list of good guys (any o youse folks out there hurt our buddies an' we'll turn you to glass!) and a list of bad guys (who will be turned to glass on principle). I've always had this sense of patronising indulgence from US politicians on foreign soil.

Obama seems to be doing something else: he's recognising that with mass global communication even national politics are global events, especially when you're the US. The US Goverment has spent so much time and effort stamping it's ironshod jackboot all over the rest of the world to show how big and mighty it is, US politics have become a matter of serious global interest.

[teahisme.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps as a good patriot, he is just trying to tell the rest of the world that not everyone in my country is an idiot. Of course every country has their idiots, I think on a ratio of people to land mass we all probably have a similar percentage.

[katebush.livejournal.com]

Who could take McCain seriously anyway, he's named after an oven chip? ;)

[andygates.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of the pre-Bush presidents. This incredibly simplistic with-us-or-agin-us thing is new. The cod-psychologist in me would say that the open, engaging president is the confident one (and why not? biggest pile of resources, economy, tech and living standards anywhere: America should rock) - the isolationist snarly presidents are scared of something.

That's what's refreshing: he's not frightened to engage.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that every president is an assassination target for the crazies out there; he's got to understand that. There are too many Kennedy parallels being drawn to miss out the squicky one.

Do you get to do an absentee vote?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Only 5% brain.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

But will it have any effect on the voter back home? How - to use the cliché - will it play in Peoria? I can see an ornery bunch who'd vote for McCain simply because they don't like being told by fags in France how to vote. Pretty sure that they're in the minority, mind, but I'm a worry-wart 'cos as one of the Rest Of The World, I really really really don't want another crusty old hawkish cock on the button.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

Also he looks like he belongs behind the wheel of a state trooper car wearing a Stetson and chasing Burt Reynolds in a Trans-Am.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Harsh, but fair.

Whereas Obama looks cool enough to be played by Will Smith in the biopic.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

lj ate my first attempt to post so this is my second.

I don't represent the average American voter but here's what I'm seeing.

I've spoken with and overheard numerouse citizens stating that they want to know who his VP is because they *also* assume he will be assasinated within the first two years. They don't want to vote for a vp they really hate. White, black, old, young they all think he's a dead man if elected.

I've been miserable about what my country has said and done in my name during this administration. But we're in it so thick and foul I have little hope that *anyone* is going to be able to pull us out. Not in the short run of four years, maybe not in ten or twenty either.

We've been picking leaders based on the "I don't like him, but I HATE/FEAR the other guy" principal for as long as I remember. The truth is... most of us are apathetic and ill informed. If we vote at all it's ususally because a church leader or media personality told us what to do.

Majority rule seems to just mean the large glut of stupid and fertile over ride educated and cautious. Ever damn time.

No matter who wins it will probably still get worse. Once you've allowed a government to take away your rights while granting itself special powers to be above it's own law, you can't really expect to ever get them back.

America. Good idea. Poor execution.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

That "who will be veep when the prez has a heart attack / is assassinated / chokes on a frakking peanut?" question is persistent across all elections - surely you're not suggesting that people were even more encouraged to vote Bush by the presence of Cheney?

The thinking you're displaying is based on fear. FDR has dibs on that ground: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." If every black candidate feared running in case of assassination, well... round here we call that 'institutional racism' and its quiet acceptance of an unacceptable status quo is to be abhorred.

As for execution, well, that's the dilemma of all democracy: By any standard, many of the populace are unacceptable buffoons (apply your standard of choice). The merit of the system is that people feel like they're having a say - whether that has any effect or is true, they at least feel like it's their choice.

And of course the flipside of that is that we out in the world blame every damn American for letting that peanut-gargling gibbon into power. Twice.

[simoneck.livejournal.com]

200,000 to see a presidential candidate that you can't even vote for....strange.
Makes you wonder what effect having a directly elected head of state would have in the UK or Germany. Or even, dare I say it, Europe.
I'm not sure how to get EU presidential elections to work, but then I'm not sure how the EU will work long term anyway.

Democracy is a funny thing. The model we've pretty much settle on is to elect representatives. But that makes it hard if you like some of the things a party says, but not others. And even then, the party can renege on a manifesto promise (student fees and EU constitution referendum are recent examples that spring to mind). The representatives (in the UK at least) seem too remote and unanswerable to their voters, too often they just toe the party line rather than voting with their consciences.
Some places, like Switzerland, have more referendums and direct say (enough people signing forces a referendum I believe). That would seem to be a better model, though I suspect it would often bring through legislation you may not personally like (return of the death penalty anyone). I can see it might be difficult to force difficult decisions through under that model, but it doesn't appear that many difficult decisions get made at the moment.

[gedhrel.livejournal.com]

Direct democracy sounds ok, but how do you avoid giving more direct control to Murdoch?

[simoneck.livejournal.com]

pass a law saying that no single organisation is allowed to control more than...20%?....of the media. Split it by print and/or TV. Or some such. And 50% has to be controlled by UK citizens.
I'm sure clever people could formulate something like that.

I'd just like to get away from the all or nothing part of voting a party in for 5 years. It just means we have 3 parties all competing for the middle ground, and that I can't even think of two big issues where they differ significantly to use as an example.
How about you are Pro EU and want tax cuts.
Or antiwar and want greater taxation. (note that this may be the current libdem stance, but I lose track of whether they want to raise or lower taxes).

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

Win.

"Barack Obama: Black Man In."

[gedhrel.livejournal.com]

Considering how newscorp manages to avoid paying tax, setting up a few shell companies to bypass restrictions on media monopolies ought to be child's play.

(wrt lib dems: touche; they want to raise taxes - but not say so so blatantly)

[maythen-apple.livejournal.com]

hey hey hey! I didn't say *I* choose to cast my vote because Oprah told me to.

And no, I don't think the VP was the thing they worried about. I was trying to explain that I've never seen such a large glut of the public so deeply convinced that assasination isn't a possibility but an inevitability.

I had nothing to do with electing that moron or allowing him to run rough shod over everyone, including us. I vote. I write. I call. I've even picketed and marched. It didn't stop him/them from proceeding in my name.
I'm not sure anything would, short of a bloody revolution, and it takes more than one person to have a revolution. If I'm the only one who shows up they just whisk me off to never be seen again. I would be a Terrorist, and that's not a good label to end up with over here.

Please don't make the mistake that "American" means beer swilling, pork rind eating, trailer living, half wit. There's plenty of us who wanted something better, and have been rather fruitlessly trying to make a difference some where some how.

This is not the administration I wanted. This is not the governement I
voted for. These are not the wars I wanted people to die for.

I DIDN'T DO IT I swear.

I was just trying to tell you what's going through the grapevine over here. I never meant to imply I was swinging with them.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Easy, tiger.

I think the glum convictions are wrong. But we'll see, eh?

As for the rest, I ain't accusing you. But I am accusing the nation. I accuse the UK much the same way, and I've beaten myself up until I'm numb over not doing enough to stop the damn mess.

Bah. Tacitus was grumpy about this in umpty-ump BCE. It's hardly news. Maybe we're just wrong, and the idiocracy is the One Right And True Way. Fancy a can of Brawndo? It's got electrolytes!

[andygates.livejournal.com]

PR.

Everyone knows it.

[simoneck.livejournal.com]

I'm less against PR than I used to be.
But you still get the having to vote for a person or party that only partly aligns with your wishes. You also don't have the direct representation. If you don't like how your personal represenative is doing, you can't vote them out.
It certainly increases the impact of minority parties, whether that be Greens or National Front.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

But the only person that aligns with my interests is me. Every politician is way off about something, so it's always a compromise. Parties and voting blocs are a necessary reality.