One does not need to be too bright to see which way the wind is blowing on the campaign trail. Note please, that I do not support Obama (or McCain for that matter). The change that Obama will symbolyze will be only one of external projection, but for most of the World this will matter a lot. All major European news sources - including The Economist came out in support of Obama.
So it is no surprise that opinion polls show voters ready to punish the Republican party. Even if John McCain pulls off a surprise victory, beating Barack Obama to the White House, he will have to govern in deference to a Democratic Congress.
Conflicts need their McCains. In the eyes of American enemies McCain is a better adversary, tough - like them - strong and talking business. McCain will alienate fussy Europeans, and make Russia mad, won't he - and this should be good, they might reason. The adversary like Obama - the outsider - will be much harder to circumvent. It may well be that US will finally learn importance of being European - what it has forgotten since JFK and will go on the charm offensive. Sceptics, Eastern Europeans and most anti-Western Arab nations will be unswayed by displays of Western solidarity.
Republican administration had no chance in the Middle East - the Democratic one will have the appearance of a chance. I do not for the least think - as some on the right might - that Obama is some sort of hard lefty. In truth, the only instincts he has is to get elected and then he will witness many a turnaround. He will be another Clinton and may even end up with a stain.
Clintonian America of 1990s - when i lived there - was not too different from the one which is ther now. So, all will remain the same.
The End of Eternity
2 days ago
3 comments:
Oh no! I thought that when Obama gets elected the world will change into a haven of peace and prosperity and all will bask in a general state of positive beatitude!! Like.
So you reckon we'll still be the miserable lot that we are now? I dare say it is very possible! Like.
Actually i stand corrected. Just witnessing Michelle Obama on the stand with the husband was a shock to me, especially knowing tense racist past of this country. This presidency will the end of the skin-color hurdle and the end of the Southern Dream. The (half) black president with a black wife has a huge symbolic significance. Enormous inside and outside. He may be a typical American president with all same policies his skin color will tell otherwise, he will not be able to escape this fact. Race matters to the world and to US. Today i watched BBC panel from Doha with audience filled by exctatic wide eyed Obama fans, mostly hijabi ladies. They salivate over his second name. If votes was in Qatar, Obama would win 90% to 10% was the motion. See, what they get.
Riri is right; there will be no great change. But then there couldn't be. His room for maneuver is very small and even if he was foolish enough to think that he could transform the world (as many of his supporters seem to), then he and they would soon be howling at the moon.
Nonetheless, an Obama win would be momentous, as Nazim says. On purely symbolic level, that someone from his background and with his skin colour should rise to the post of president would give such a fillup to his country's battered confidence. It would reinvigorate the American myth that anything is possible. It would be the living proof that change can be achieved and not just suffered.
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