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For some reason I find American politics so much more interesting than the Canadian variety. The whole tortured process and the cast of characters seem to be more the stuff of of an epic HBO series than real life. So, for over a year now I have been following with great fascination these machinations that ended with Tuesday's presidential elections.
The Democrats already had Barak Obama as their candidate, so it was the Republican candidate selection ordeal where the initial drama was occurring. And what a bunch of wing-nuts those candidates proved to be. The Republican Party seemed to be devoid of moderation. Their prevailing ideology seemed to be extreme right wing, ultra conservative, fanatically Christian, and strongly xenophobic. It seemed their outlook was firmly entrenched in the 19th century where, if they had their way in this century, all Americans would be packing iron. And last summer, after months of invidious campaigning by most candidates, Mitt Romney emerged as the Republican presidential hopeful.
Amazing . . . at least from my perspective. As an atheist, I have have a problem with any belief system based on some supernatural guy in the sky that nobody has ever seen. That an individual who wears magic underwear and believes in a history of his country which has no bearing in fact is selected by the Republican Party to be their presidential candidate was, to me, simply bizarre.
In the months after the Democratic and Republican conventions the news coverage indicated that the race was very close. Indeed, after the first Obama/Romney debate and a strong showing by Romney, he was considered by many to have captured the initiative and some polls indicated he had the lead. Republicans were ecstatic and right up until the night of the election most thought a new president was about to be elected. I have to admit, that as this drama was unfolding, I was beginning to despair.
Well, my respect for the American voter increased considerably on 6 November with both an electoral college and popular vote win by Barack Obama . While I believe there has been disappointment with the way that Obama performed in his first term, a majority of Americans have rejected what Mitt Romney was offering. Most the world outside of the US heaved a sigh of relief that Barack Obama will continue in office (except in Pakistan apparently, where I gather people liked Romney for some unfathomable reason). Given the mindset of the far right, I expect the conspiracy theorists will be hard at work to come up with a plot of how the Democrats stole the election.
So its back to grind then for Obama. I am happy that he won but he still has a Republican dominated House of Representatives with which to contend and massive fiscal problems to be resolved if America is to make a sustained economic recovery. Hopefully some kind of compromise will be attained, although, if the last four years are any measure, Republican intransigence will be Obama's biggest hurtle.
