Monday, October 27, 2008
Obama-Biden Support in Spain, Europe, and the World
Does anyone else think it is weird that the United States presidential election gets nightly coverage on the news in Spain and other places around the world, while we learn almost nothing about their elections on ours? I think it is bad that things like that don’t matter to most people in our country. While other countries realize that our president might affect their countries, the United States might as well say that we don’t think it matters who the president of countries like Spain is. A comment made by McCain in September goes along these same lines. He made a series of remarks to a reporter’s questions about meeting with the president of Spain, Mr. Zapatero, which really didn’t make sense. Most people took it as he didn’t know who Zapatero was, and had assumed he was from Latin America. Even after the reporter clarified his question and included the word Europe, McCain didn’t change his implications that he wouldn’t meet with Zapatero. Many people from Spain appreciated Biden’s comment in the vice presidential election that he thought it was crazy that McCain isn’t interested in having talks with the president of Spain. According to a poll in Spain, 89% of people who said they had an opinion about the president of the United States would vote for Obama. This percentage is around what most other countries in Europe are at, and is slightly higher than Mexico and Canada. Almost every country in the world prefers Obama to McCain. With our nation’s current foreign policies it is not hard to imagine that almost all foreigners want to see some serious change in our president.
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4 comments:
Well, it’s true that the new president of the United States will influence not only the future of America but also the whole world. The new president’s foreign policies and adjustment of domestic economic policies will have a strong influence on the other part of the world. So, there’s no wonder why there’s report on the American presidential campaign throughout the global web pages. However, personally I don’t appreciate the way some government leaders view other countries as aggressive competitors. I think the world won’t really make progress untill all the nations are becoming wealthier and advanced in terms of technology and civilization.
American news, music, and celebs (presidential candidates included) are quite easily accessible, but what has caused this facilitation of information? And why, as you mentioned, is it one-sided? It really seems as though international communities are really intrigued by this election (many say it's results will change their lives abroad as well), but why isn't it the other way around? This election has gone beyond the normal forms of interpersonal communication between candidates and voters ...do we have the internet to thank for that?
I couple weeks ago in class, Tina mentioned that most every other country is looking to us to elect someone who is a world leader, not just the leader of the US. The image of Obama is a symbol of hope around the world, and McCain's is basically another Bush. The statistic of 88% of Spain's population supporting Obama really isn't that suprising. People in other countries hate Bush, it only naturally follows that they would hate McCain.
When my mother travels overseas, which is quite often (easily 15+ countries in the past year and a half), she always gets asked why we elected Bush again and why we're so stupid. She just laughs and says she didn't vote for him.
Bush has given Republicans a bad name world wide. For example Bush has been militarily aggressive throughout his 8 years of office; therefore foreign nations are concerned that McCain will bring similar beliefs to the table. Obama has portrayed himself as something different and the world considers that the best and safest alternative.
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