Hello, my name is Michael and I’m a British person. I know this because I watched the American election, despite it having no apparent significance to my life. I sat, glued to my computer, watching the results come in. “Wow, Pennsylvania has turned blue, that’s a bad sign for the Republicans. And look, Ohio has turned blue as well! Surely an Obama victory is certain, now!” I decided at 3.30 am, somewhere between Ohio and California, to celebrate an Obama victory and go to bed.
The thing is, though, that despite it being a foreign election, it does affect me. This doesn’t happen the other way around. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Americans don’t get up really early in the morning to watch the British election results come in. “Wow, Rochdale is still red, and the Liberal Democrats have 15% of the vote!” I think not. So why was the British media so excited about the American election? Why was I so excited, to the extent that I stayed up until stupid o’clock? Let me explain what happened over here in the few months leading up to the election.
At some point at the beginning of this year, “election fever” kicked in. I remember reading about the whole process in The Economist in March, I believe. We then had an almost continuous update of how the Obama vs Clinton battle was going. Predictions were set out, bets were made, and speculation was flying around faster than the train on which I’m currently sitting (though, granted, that might not be as fast as you might imagine). Once Obama won the candidacy, we got his entire life history plastered across every newspaper, and it was quite clear that most of the UK, if not Europe, was routing for his success.
Why? Why do we care? We care a great deal, in fact, because the POTUS (impressed by my jargon?) isn’t just P of the US, he’s effectively P of the world. He has such enormous power in that office, and his actions have ramifications so far beyond his own borders, that we can’t afford for it all to go horribly wrong. Let me relate this to climate change. I don’t really understand American demographics, tax cuts, “middle class” this or “blue collar” that, but I do understand the ramifications on climate change.
America is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases; there’s really no denying that. America has also, rather infamously, refused to sign up to any worldwide efforts to reduce them (notably the Kyoto Protocol). If we’re to make any progress in this field, we really need America to get involved (yes, and countries like China and India also).
McCain’s stance on the topic was particularly vague, and his choice of Sarah Palin (drill, baby, drill!) sent a chill down the collective spine of environmentalists (and the sane) around the world. I wasn’t convinced that he’d make any real effort to reduce emissions. Obama, on the other hand, had a well laid out energy plan. I admit they both went back and forth regarding offshore drilling, but on the whole, Obama’s policies were simply better.
All eyes now turn to Obama. Can he maintain the drive, the “freshness”
and the strength which has taken him so far already. Can he take control of a difficult situation, and do the right thing for the world? He has the power; let’s hope he uses it wisely.
