Klara ([info]mummimamma) wrote,
@ 2008-02-17 22:05:00
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Current mood: hungover
Entry tags:everyday fluff: 2008, politics: international

Politics, parties and other stuff
Lately I've been wondering, maybe it is the Norwegian media coverage, maybe it's not, but I find the coverage of the USanian election confusing. First of all, they are more or less only talking about Clinton and Obama, and which of them are going to win. But they are both from the same party, and is it definite that the Democrats are going to win the election at all? Furthermore, this popularity contest between Clinton and Obama, is it a good thing or a bad thing for the Democrats? The USanian election system is confusing to me.

Else, nothing much happens, at least not today since I am rather hung over. One of my flatmates celebrated her 30th birthday yesterday. There were about 40 guest, lots of food and several litres of alcohol. Some time during the evening there even came hardingfele-player, who played for us. That was really great. I threw out the last guests at about 630 this morning. The flatmate whose party it was had withdrawn a couple of hours earlier (for some bed-related activities). Also I think our land-couple aren't very happy with us...

Tomorrow I have an appointment at (with? in?) the bank to talk about loans. Yay?
Also I am now a member of the NHH curling team. Yay!


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(Anonymous)
2008-02-17 10:28 pm UTC (link)
Try following politics.reddit.com for instance (it's heavy on the libertarian side). I think that the republicans have more or less copped out of the race, can John McCain, a 70 year old man with foot-in-mouth disease earlier shunned by the republican party win the race?

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[info]andraax
2008-02-17 10:29 pm UTC (link)
I wrote this, btw. For some reason I was not logged in.

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[info]angevin2
2008-02-17 10:55 pm UTC (link)
Okay, basically what all this is about is that before a presidential election, there are primary elections, which determine who's going to be the candidate each party runs. The way these work is that members of the two parties in each state vote for their preferred candidate from their party -- though what's really going on is that they elect delegates to vote for their candidate at the party's national convention (these happen in late summer and are held for the purpose of announcing the party's candidate/kicking off the campaign; it's usually clear who the nominee will be by the time this happens, but it might not be this year). Then comes the "real" election. Of course it is not certain that the Democrats are going to win the White House; the close race between Clinton and Obama is getting more attention because John McCain appears to have the Republican nomination sewn up (most of his competitors have withdrawn from the race), whereas the Democratic race a) is really close b) is between a woman and an African-American, which is unprecedented in American history.

I have noticed, too, that most people I know who are aligned with the Democratic party (including me) have said that they'd be okay with voting for whichever of Clinton or Obama ends up winning the nomination. It's nice to be able to say that.

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[info]mummimamma
2008-02-19 03:41 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for an illuminating answer. I have kind of gotten that it's just the preliminaries, but I find it confusing that they seem to be spending so much time, and money trying to beat one who should really be on the same side (I am not a competitative person at all), so I was wondering whether it could actually be harmful to the Democrats. It is good to know that it is not. After all the Democrats are somewhat less evil from my European sosio-democratic view, than the Republicans.

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[info]oakenguy
2008-02-17 11:54 pm UTC (link)
It confuses us a little, too. :) Not so much the primaries and main election, which [info]angevin2 described well, but there's also something going on with delegates and 'superdelegates' who get sent to the primary, and the 'superdelegates' necessarily having to support the candidate who won their state, which means either Clinton or Obama MIGHT be ahead, depending on who's asking and what the superdelegates feel like today.

Oy.

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[info]mummimamma
2008-02-19 03:44 pm UTC (link)
There was a piece on the radio the other day, when the foreign correspondent to the US tried to explain the thing with the delegates and the superdelegates, and electors and whatnot. I felt very confustupid. Good to know I am not alone.

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[info]embryomystic
2008-02-18 04:33 am UTC (link)
They make a big deal about it because their electoral system is a joke. They have to get everyone excited about all the new candidates and their relative chances so that the masses don't realise that no matter who gets elected, nothing changes, and their vote doesn't even matter, because it's their electors.

Bread and circuses.

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[info]mummimamma
2008-02-19 03:47 pm UTC (link)
Well, we have our opinions about the American system... because it worked so well last time! (And as I said above, I got a crash course in the workings the other day. It doesn't seem like an ideal system, now does it?)

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[info]embryomystic
2008-02-20 01:59 am UTC (link)
Well, yeah. As I meant to imply, it seems almost mediaeval, coming, as I do, from a parliamentary democracy. Canada is far from perfect, to be sure, but we don't go through the motions of 'electing' a President-Emperor who then proceeds to do whatever he pleases.

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[info]embryomystic
2008-02-18 04:33 am UTC (link)
"...because it's their electors that do the voting anyway," I meant to write.

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