sydney journals :: latest entry
Following on from my blimey, my London journals, and strewth, my original Australian travel blog, I'm back in Sydney. Far out!
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Wednesday, November 5 2008, 18:04
A presidential first
I've had BBC and CNN open all day with live coverage of the US election to distract me from work today, and I seem to be on a roll. The last few elections that I've watched have brought back the results I've wanted: Tony Blair in the UK, Kevin Rudd here, and finally, Barack Obama in the US, the first black president ever elected. And so the American circus is over at last! Probably the best speech of the entire season, including the campaigns for the Republican and Democratic nominations, was John McCain's gracious speech conceding defeat, although it ended with some cheesy all-American gumph that was to be expected. It was fairly short and to the point. By contrast, the winner's speech reminded me that politicians of every stripe deal in cliches and bombast, whether they're the liberals I support or the conservatives I loathe.
Sadly, it probably does also mean an end to the wonderful outbursts of the comical Sarah Palin, whose gaffes are worthy of Prince Philip. I was almost hoping John McCain might win so we might get more of the same from her. Still, I wouldn't really wish that on the world.
It was great watching the states gradually spread their colour over the electoral map, following the sun from east to west, predictably with blue in the north-east, red in the middle, and a solid blue across the western seaboard that spelt defeat for John McCain and his lipstick pitbull sidekick. If you look at the results for each state, you can see a really close line between blue and red, it's always around the 50-50 division, even in those states that vote predictably every time. But if you zoom in, as you can on the New York Times election results map, you can see that the closer people live to each other, the more likely they are to vote liberal. The dots on the map indicate the larger population centres, and almost without exception, the country folk vote red, and the urbanites vote blue.
Is that the same everywhere? Are countrysiders everywhere arch-conservatives? It's a tempting stereotype...
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