Ben Gamblin Online - Blog: America Votes |
America Votes04 Nov '08, 22:02The inescapable news of the day (and for many days prior) is the elections taking place in the United States to choose a new President, members of the House of Representatives and a third of the House of the Senate.There has been so much coverage in the media (and I'm only referring to the UK), that going over the background to this election is really quite pointless suffice to say that Democratic hopeful Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain have been campaigning to win the votes of the American public in order to become the next US President on 20 January 2009. Why does it matter to us though? This isn't our politics, and we do not get a say. However, Britain is of course a very close ally of the US. Whichever candidate wins, and whatever policies that candidate presses forward with could impact on Britain, Europe and the rest of the world. One only needs to look at the recent financial crisis which originated in The States to realise this, and the war in Iraq is another obvious area where Britain has been influenced by the policies of America. So who do I want to win? I actually find it fairly difficult here in the UK to be a fair judge of who I believe should win in overseas elections. After all, I'm not particularly familiar with internal US politics and most of what I see is a result of US foreign policies. As such, that is all I can judge on. I know that I would not want to see another George W. Bush in the White House, so immediately that indicates a black mark against the Republican candidate John McCain; him being of the same party. Senator Obama has talked often about the need to remove their presence from Iraq and concentrate of Afghanistan, and I do think that's sensible. John McCain, in my mind, seems to be all about the military which is fair I guess, due to his background but it's not a characteristic that endears me towards him. I'm also not a fan of his Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin since I learned that she is a fan of guns (she's a member of the National Rifle Association, and supports the right to bear arms), is for capital punishment, supports Creationism being taught in public schools (although I don't know that she is against teaching Evolution) and wasted $150,000 on her wardrobe ensuring she didn't appear in the same outfit more than once. So I'm hoping Barack Obama wins. His policies of strengthening alliances around the world is sensible as long as it's not a policy of trying to enforce the way of the United States on other nations. He is keen to use diplomacy with nations such as Iran but is prepared to back this up with military use if necessary. He has a target of cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, which seems ambitious but certainly worthwhile. Hopefully this will be a change over how things have been under George Bush where green policies have not exactly been Earth shattering - take Kyoto for example. The first polls close on the Eastern coast at 11pm GMT, and results should start coming in an hour after that. I'm not staying up to find out what happens, but hopefully by the time I switch on BBC Breakfast tommorow morning I will discover who has achieved the minimum 270 electoral votes required to win, and hopefully I will be happier with the outcome than I was four years ago when Bush won his second term.
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