Many hate to admit it, but most people want to vote because of the reason depicted as follows:
Race is a concern to some, especially in some more conservative white majority states. A white guy actually said on TV that the last black guy he met was holding a baseball bat (suggesting the black guy would use it to hit someone) . Some are really afraid of a black guy being in charge of the country and should be run by a white guy. Seriously, would Obama hit someone with a baseball bat when he has the secret service as his disposal if he is the President!? On the other side of the arena, many Blacks are voting for Obama simply because he is Black though a few Blacks won't be voting for Obama because he is Black.
John McCain - Republican
Barack Obama - Democrat
Which one of the above will get his picture printed on the TIME magazine??
I have read the "promises" each of the candidates made in their energising speeches but my question is how many of them they can fullfill. There is never much details of the actual implementations of whatever they said they would do, it is likely that the voters will be disappointed again just like many other previous elections after all the voting excitment is gone.
Many polls have suggested that Obama has a double digit (10 percentage points) lead ahead of McCain, but are the pollers being honest of who they would vote on election day??
I can never understand the US electoral system. Some states have larger electoral votes than others. I can understand that this would work during the infant age of the country, but is it a fair representation for each state in this modern age. Whoever got the required 270 electoral votes would get the White House. The number of electoral votes get from each state is shown here:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/maps/obama_vs_mccain/
E.g. CA - 55 - if most people in California voted for Obama, then 55 electoral votes goto Obama. The elected President must get 270 electoral votes in total.
Blue - certain that Obama will win; Purple - leaning towards Obama
Red - certain that McCain will win ; Pink - leaning towards McCain
You can get the latest result here:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/map/polling/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/president/
(Just don't learn English from CNN!! )
Why do others around the world should care about the US election? Unfortunately, US has the biggest influence around the world (as they insist), so whoever is elected to be the US President, his/her US policy (especially the foreign policy) and the US economy will have a ripple effect around the globe even if you don't invest in the stock market.
I think McCain has made the mistake of choosing Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential running mate. She has some experience in being a Governor of Alaska and a Mayor of Wasilla. but probably not a good candidate for the vice president whose job is to act as the President should anything happen to the President. I personally don't think she is ready if she couldn't tell a faked (North American) French accent of a Montreal radio show host from the accent of the real President of France . For those don't know what happened: Palin had a 6 minutes conversation with a radio talk-show host who faked as the President of France making an official call to Palin. Palin thought the call was genuine.
Even today (the election day), both candidates are making speeches and political ads are still running on various TV networks. This is rare even in US politics.
Whoever elected to be the President would have a handful of things to do. I don't think any voters should expect the President to be able to solve the problems him(her)self but the voters should expect the President to be surrounded by people who can. I think George W Bush really wants to solve the problems (even though he created most of them) but he is just surrounded by incapable people and has been ill-adviced. Unfortunately, the current US electoral system doesn't allow the voters to keep these people away from the White House.
I am predicting an Obama win but with a smaller margin between Obama and McCain than is projected by various polling sources. I certainly hope there won't be another "vote recount " scenario which will take the election to another few months and prevent me from watching other better TV programmes.
