World View On Election 2000 Essay Research

World View On Election 2000 Essay, Research Paper

The 2000 Presidential Election will go down in the history books as one of the greatest tests of democracy our country has ever seen. The country as a whole watches and waits for the winner to be declared. However, the United States is not the only country preoccupied with the election, the rest of the world ponders and waits as well. The final outcome of the election will affect the entire world as a whole. However, as of now, the world is not looking for guidance, it is looking at the United States election for comic relief. Countries like England, China, Japan, Russia and Canada are all getting their fill of America s election humor pie.

The entire continent of Europe is amused at our failure to produce a president elect right away. The Mirror is a London based liberal publication that is circulated daily. It has spent most of its time focusing on how the election has panned out thanks to the incompetence of the United States election process. They have even gone as far as to question, How could Gore blow it. On paper, he should have won by a comfortable margin, perhaps 10 percent or more (Internet 1). The mirror also commented on the qualifications of Vice President Al Gore, his (Gore s) resume shows him far more qualified for the Oval Office, at least in terms of his familiarity with national concerns, than a second-term governor of Texas almost totally dependent on issue advisors (Internet 1).

The quality of the candidates was not the only feature the daily focused on, the legitimacy of the Electoral College and the inability of the United States to effectively choose a President is also at the mercy of the press in London.

The upcoming meeting of the electors on December 18 has allowed for many criticisms. The Electoral College is so barmy, if three of the hundredths of delegates switched sides, they would change the result, and the prospect of such a change, is enough to make the lawyers mouths water in anticipation (Internet 2).

As Americans squabble over whether their presidential cliffhanger is a case of democracy at its finest or constitutional confusion, many Europeans are relishing the role they are playing as the transatlantic heckling gallery. Viewed through the European looking glass, America comes across as a quirky place with even quirkier citizens (Internet 3).

There was an article written as a cover feature that ran the second week after the election in The Guardian, another daily circulated in London. The title of the article was Only in Florida How America s weirdest state derailed the US election (Internet 3). The article uses the famous one-liner that it s not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes. The authors marvel that the election of the next U.S president will be decided in Florida, America s weird, troubled protuberance in the Caribbean, where a million Cuban exiles still plotting their revenge against Castro rub up against Jewish pensioners from Brooklyn, Haitian refugees and a shoal of opportunists, lost souls and part-time Disney employees (Internet 3).

The British are taking this opportunity to laugh and poke fun of our democracy in action. They joke of Revocation of our Independence alerting Americans of the British Queen s intention to resume monarchical duties over the former colonies in light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves (Internet 3).

In a story that ran with a Belgrade, Yugoslavia, dateline, The Onion, a satirical Web site, reported this week that Serbia s new president, Vojislav Kostunica, had decided to dispatch more than 30,000 peacekeepers to the U.S., pledging full support to the troubled North American nation as it struggles to establish democracy (Internet 2). An anecdote on a Russian Website proposes a marquee 12-round boxing match to be held in Madison Square Garden to resolve the presidential imbroglio. But others, like the stand-up British comic Sean Meo, who is well quoted in many British publications, look well beyond the boxing ring. They say the presidential limbo could have more dire implications for the American electorate and the rest of the planet. If aliens landed now and asked you to take them to your leader, we d be in trouble. (Internet 4)

In China, they are learning from the constitutional dramas unfolding elsewhere. They feel as though one of the great strengths of the US constitution is the clear separation of power among the executive branch, with its elected president; the legislative branch, with its two house Congress; and the judicial branch, which applies and interprets the law. This according to journalists in China might not be a quick acting system, but that is part of its aim, to keep balance of power and provide for popular representation without succumbing to mob rule or the tyranny of the majority (Internet 5).

China s media is learning that there is more to the election than the actual voting procedures. They feel that the Electoral College is not to blame in this case. China argues that, given modern communications and the now greater centralization of power in the US, the president should be elected by direct, popular vote. But the Electoral College is a legitimate way of reflecting the nation s origin as a union of states with individual identities and diverse interests (Internet 5).

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