Saturday, November 01, 2008

Just can't avoid this presidential election



I haven't followed this presidential election religiously, but it seems that you can't just avoid it, as updates on both candidates are on the first page of many news websites. The above poll result is from a Malaysian Chinese website that I frequent. I know that McCain is not popular in Malaysia (I think he is unpopular due to George Bush and Iraq war), but didn't know it could be until this level: 91% voters wish Obama win over 9% for McCain.

In 2004, I followed the election result until 5am in the morning and was disappointed that George Bush won again. That disappointment was mainly due to the Iraq war, I didn't research on his domestic political views, even though I was living on the State he used to be the governor.

Now, I wonder how the Americans decide who are they going to vote for? Surely their decision won't be based on only international policies and what the world wish (poll results show that the majority of the residents in the world prefer Obama over McCain). Personally, I don't really care if a president prefers abortion or gay marriage, I would vote base on the economy policies.

In France, I have a feeling that the medias are in favor for Obama. They have reports on how McCain was lying when he said he was being tortured Vietnam, how Sarah Palin has exorbitant spending on her clothing. There were no news (or I didn't notice) about the fact that Obama refused to show his birth certificate to clarify the claim that he was actually borned in Kenya thus not an US citizen, nor the fact that he has raised huge fund for his campaign and his spending on advertisement was ridiculous, compared to McCain who only uses public funding.

If you are interested, here is a table comparing the policies of the two candidates:
http://ofrecord.com/policypositions/

No matter who wins, I hope that the new president will interface the world issues in a genuine way, instead of playing the world big bully role for their own economic and political interests.

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