I've just heard on Newsnight a Republican pollster saying to Jeremy Paxman that if McCain lost the popular vote (by two percentage points he reckons) but takes the Electoral College, then McCain would be happy to be president. Paxman thought this a bit rich, but the pollster said "it's how the game is played".Now, as I contemplate bed, does it all come down to being a game? The worst case scenario for American politics is precisely this conundrum. A president esconced in the White House with the help of the Electoral College in defiance of the popular mandate. The crafty Founding Fathers, themselves not given much to democracy, were keen to promote freedom at the expense of democracy. Ever since, it seems to me that American history is about Democracy trying to find equality with Freedom. I find it very peculiar that in the modern United States there have to be Zimbabwean type lines in order to cast a ballot. Surely the powers-that-be can rustle up a few more polling places? Freedom to vote but a struggle for democracy!
My hope that Obama wins is that for Americans they will get a new broom to sweep aside the corporate abuses, the manifestation of government corruption, and the denial of easy ballot access. Freedom for the average person to count in the process.
I hope it is a clean win, but apparently there are bevvies of lawyers waiting to pounce should a hanging chad be found. An Obama win should be some sort of guarantee that this will be cleaned up. After all, as the BBC is saying, we (meaning the British) don't have a vote, but it affects us anyway. And France and Germany and Canada and Mexico and..........................
No comments:
Post a Comment