Great Expectations

By Maui Curmudgeon

For several months I tracked the European thoughts of the American Election through Europe’s most well-known news publication - The Economist. I thought I’d catch up with the magazine for their thoughts on the results:

1. Barack Obama’s election is the cover, with the heading, “Great Expectations.” Inside, coverage is massive. They have an entire column of summaries devoted to the election, a page and a half editorial, a page on worldwide reaction, three full pages on his challenges, two full pages on the economic problems he faces, three full pages and a sidebar on the mechanics of the election, and a full page on the “unhappy warrior” John McCain. All this is besides the pages of coverage on the other elections, Congress and local.

2. They are happy Obama won. They report that worldwide, in a poll of 53,000 people, only three countries came out for McCain - the Congo, Algeria and Jordan. In 50 countries, Obama’s support exceeded 90%. In dozens of cases, people tried to game the system by registering from different countries to vote more than once for their candidate. Four of 5 of these cheaters wanted McCain.

3. They continue to be appalled at the mess Bush and his conservatives have left the new president. War, debt, injustice, violations of international treaties, policies condoning torture - the list seems endless, and they muse why anyone wanted the job in the first place.

4. “Mr. McCain’s 46% of the vote was surprisingly high” the magazine writes, though then it says it knows why, though it doesn’t understand. The reason is America’s self-defeating conservatism and “latent hypocrisy”. The most used example of the confusion the rest of the world feels when viewing America is crime. A country wallowing in crime rates far above the rest of the world continues to give out guns to everyone as if they were candy.

5. “The defeated candidate outclasses his supporters” they write, denouncing the vocal conservatives who, they are certain, just don’t understand the 21st century world anymore, if they ever did. McCain was gracious, and they bemoan that he turned his campaign over to the vicious partisans which ruined McCain’s first run in 2000, the Karl Rove bunch. They hope that the old McCain returns, now that he has lost.

6. McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, also gets slapped. “Now she has supplanted Hillary Clinton as the most divisive woman in American politics” and adding that although she is an early contender for the conservative nomination, if she stumbles, “plenty of others are poised to pounce.” They also call McCain’s choice of Palin, “the worst single decision of the 2008 election season.”

7. Despite Obama’s win and the general feeling of hope, they note with certainty that the age of America is over.” At the end of the 19th century, Britain was the world’s superpower. By the end of the 20th, it was America.” This century, the balance will shift again, away from America. They say it will Obama’s charge to see that the transition takes place peacefully.

Reading these reactions, one might assume that The Economist is a liberal paper. It is not. It has, for
nearly 150 years, been Britain’s conservative watchdog, especially fiscally, which makes its conclusions all the more potent.