It is only four days before one of the most monumental democratic elections in our generation. I say this not only as a sojourner in the United States but also as a fellow citizen of Hong Kong, of this world. Who takes the top job on Nov 4 will have the potential to change the world for the better, or the worse. Some more prominent and eminent issues at stake include the two wars, relations with Iran, North Korea, and China, and global warming on the foreign policy front; and energy policy, the restructuring of the financial industry, health care, pension on the domestic front.
It is on the one hand quite absurd to see a political campaign lasting for this long (2 years) and exhausting so much resource (Obama's group raised approximately $640 million USD and spent probably about 90% of it). On the other hand, the ingenuity and level of excellence exemplified by the politicians in both camps and the political engineers (e.g., David Axelrod, who groomed Obama to stardom since his time in Chicago) are jaw dropping. The level of oration, the careful selection of words, syntax, and visual imagery, the issues that were left on and off the table, and the combination of pundit to include and exclude... everything we saw (spare the not-so-occasional gaffes and McCain's short-sightedness in picking Palin as his running mate) seems so meticulously thought through and calculated. The goal is to iterate what the voters want to hear, even before they figure out what they want to hear. The difficulty is to decide which voters you should strategically appeal to.
The art and science behind this American (marketing) tradition is admirable, especially in the stark contrast to our own politicians in HK. Unlike the televised “political debates” we were bombarded with in August and September this year, the ones shared by Obama and McCain did not consist only of attacks on personal integrity but also on policy and vision. Unlike the laughable lexical awkwardness uttered by our Legco members, the two president hopefuls appear to be articulate, compelling, and yet unpresumptuous. It is without doubt some of Obama's speeches would make it into future textbooks of speechwriting, among the ranks of Churchill and King.
However, the flip side to such work of assiduous engineering is that it becomes unclear who is contesting for presidency. Behind the content and method of delivery of each political statement is a group of seasoned professionals, the cream of the crop, who could be on either side and do a similarly impressive job. American voters are not choosing between Obama and McCain, but rather two enormous, well-established machines: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. This is unfortunate, and quite ironic, considering both candidates chose "change" as their sound bite. By choosing to play by the rule and selecting one of the two men, by default one is NOT choosing for real changes. As promising as he is, judging from his track record of adhering to the party line, Obama might not be radically different from any liberal president. Not to suggest that radicalism is necessary what the US needs or is ready for, but as many respectable critics (e.g., Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky) have argued, many progressive social movements require a leadership that has much less ties with the current power structure/hierarchy.
With that said, it is certainly very exciting to see a multiracial man from a background of hardship and activism rising to presidency in a country with such class and race divide. This is unthinkable just a decade ago, let alone forty some years ago when the civil right movement was beginning to make baby steps.
If the unfortunate thing--that the Republicans steal the election like they did in 2000--happens on Tuesday, you’ll be seeing me in person a lot sooner than I had planned. And I bet many foreigners and even locals will follow suite.
Christian
Nov 1, 2008
Cambridge, MA
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