Two years. A billion dollars. Sixty million votes cast in the primary alone. An election that started out in a country scorched by the fierce heat of the Iraq war ending in the frigid reality of a once-in-a-generation economic slump. A contest that opened with the promise of the first woman president ending in the apparently inevitable elevation of the first black man to the White House.
There’s a paradoxically anticlimactic feeling about election days. All that effort, all that money expended around the clock for years in an effort to influence what happens on this day ends in a period of almost eerie silence.
www.timesonline.co.uk...
Americans will be voting for a new president this Tuesday, but the whole world will be watching, and holding its breath.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the U.S. presidential elections, as compared to those of other countries, is that the outcome of the race for the White House has a direct impact on the lives of millions of people from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, not forgetting the effect it carries on the people of the Middle East: Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Palestinians and Israelis among others.
The outcome of this Tuesday's election could well be the day that will change the future of the world.
by Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's candidate, will bring hope to the Middle East that relations with the United States will improve.
www.metimes.com...
There can be no doubt that today's American presidential election is historic.
We could see that the outcome gives the superpower its first female vice-president. Or the majority of American voters could send its first African-American to the White House.
The campaign has been intense and clarifying. It has been conducted in the shadow of a deep and serious financial crisis, and has left no doubt that the coming president will face challenges we have never seen before in modern times.
Barack Obama and John McCain are both well-qualified for the job. George W. Bush represented a political direction we were warned about in our part of the world. It has proven to be a timely warning.
watchingamerica.com...
The world has never paid so much attention to a single election. In one country after another, opinion polls show that the results of the American election tomorrow will become noted as a focal point.
Polls in Japan show that interest in the U.S. election is higher among Japanese people than among Americans. In Pakistan, interest in the first debate between the presidential candidates was so high that television stations had to change their schedules to immediately rebroadcast the debate twice. Because Obama has roots in Indonesia and Kenya, these countries feel that Obama should lead. In a few Kenyan high schools, students were assigned to write letters to the two American presidential candidates. Of the completed essays, 87% wrote to "Dear Barack Obama," the remainder going to McCain. In Vietnam, on the other hand, there is a lot of discussion surrounding John McCain. The American veteran has appeared here in the smoke. In Brazil, praise for Obama knows no limits: at least 8 recent political candidates have borrowed Obama's name for their own use. Last week, a representative of China's Foreign Ministry said, "We hope, and believe, that the winning candidate will pay attention to Chinese-American relations." The Xinhua News agency also quoted the point of view of Britain's Guradian newspaper--if the whole world were voting, Obama would be checking in to the White House.
watchingamerica.com...
It is simply amazing... its a cliche but it is still true... the world looks to America with hope when we try to live up to our ideals...
...and with fear and trepiditation when we don't.
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