Earlier today, between about the hours of 1.30 till 4am I engaged in the long drawn-out-ness of watching the next president of America be chosen. Though people will now have the joy of looking back and going “it was clear from the start” it really wasn’t. Indeed as the first results came through, McCain had 8 votes to Obama’s 3. A bad start for him, but then the things we all thought would happen started to roll out. Red became blue and California was the final nail in the coffin of McCain’s oven fries coffin.
So why would I stop up so late to watch an election some 8000 miles away? What great difference does it make who is president? And what makes me care?
Quite simply, very few people who read the news semi-regularly will have been able to not read about the US election. It has been all over the papers (of foreign countries) for weeks. It makes a great deal of difference who is president because George Bush ran that country as far down the path of self destruction as he could without making it look deliberate. In contrast to him, even McCain would shine with promise. As for me, I think it’s quite clear that being president of the USA is the most powerful job in the world.
So the first black president comes to office, with promises, yet so little history in the field, winning a landslide victory of seats so proposals are easier to push through congress. America may be about to get the change it so desperately needs to become strong, and to lead this world into a time of peace. That cannot be a bad thing, can it?
