Tuesday, February 12, 2008

European Interest in US election

I am incredibly interested in the upcoming presidential election and I feel that many other Americans are as well. What has surprised me though is the interest that the European countries have shown in the race. I was reading a news article from the BBC the other day and it was throwing out words like swing states and talking about how Ohio is going to be very important. This may seem very mundane and common knowledge to us, but I would categorize it as rather specialized US political jargon. I know very little about the way the European states conduct their elections but it seems that they have a fairly solid understanding of how we conduct ours. I'm curious about what people think is the reason for the disparity between the US's understanding of other countries political systems and their understanding of ours. Is it simply an education issue? Are they so much better versed in world policies? Or is it because the United States is the primary power of the world? Lastly, does it stem from the fact that the Europeans are so fed up with Bush that they want to see if we fail again in electing a reasonable candidate?

1 comment:

Jenna said...

I've actually been wondering the same thing. I thought it was very interesting that the Italian news magazines I have to read for Italian class have several articles each about the candidates and primaries. One that came out on January 17th even has Barack Obama on the cover and features an interview with him along with an article that focuses on Hillary, but also discusses the other candidates and possible candidates, like Bloomberg. These articles are not even in the "World" section of the magazine. I'm really curious about whether or not this is a new phenomenon, particularly because what I've seen focuses on Hillary (the only female candidate) and Obama (the only African American). Could it be that this particular election is making headlines all over the world because it signals a huge "change"?