Robyn and Joel's Blog: Chronicling our Copenhagen Adventures

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Monday, November 3, 2008

Yes We Can!

Today is the day before the election that will determine the next president of the United States.
You would have to have lived under a rock for the past two years to not know the significance of tomorrow’s vote. If nothing else, we can all stop talking about the campaigns in just a few hours. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the Danes are watching the US Presidential election very closely. I think all of Europe is following the election. Europe is definitely pro-Obama. But, Europe doesn’t get a vote. But, what if they did?

The Economist Magazine has an interesting article that demonstrates who would win the election if the entire world had a vote. They go so far as to create a “world electoral college” to determine the winner. You can read the article at http://www.economist.com/vote2008/index.cfm. If the world voted, Obama would win with 9,115 votes to McCain’s 203. I find myself wondering what the rest of the world sees that we Americans do not. In other words, why is the race so close in the US while the rest of the world so clearly supports Obama? Now, when Joel and I began this blog we agreed that we wouldn’t use it for political purposes… the blog is just our musings about our daily lives. And I am not straying from this with purpose with my question… I am truly perplexed. Why does the rest of the world support Obama when roughly half of America supports McCain? Why/How is the US different from the rest of the world? And, should the opinion of the rest of the world factor in our decision-making process as we chose which candidate to support?

Regardless of who you support, I encourage you each to fight the lines, rain, or whatever else will get in your way and go vote. I sent my ballot last week and now all I can do is hope… because YES WE CAN!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The economist "poll" was based on internet reader response. Notice that the U.S. has like 80% Obama support.

You original supposition is certainly true for most of the world, but the Economist data is particularly poor for establishing the claim.

Robyn said...

Actually, if I read correctly, the poll is based on "public discourse." In other words the editors at the Economist used public statements from politicians and newspaper editorials to determine how the "country" would vote. That is why some countries are listed as "not enough information" – those countries didn’t have enough public discourse to register an opinion.

Anonymous said...

On their analysis page, they say explicitly that "Unsurprisingly, countries where internet access is limited registered fewer votes." And "For what it is worth, our readers in America also massively favoured the Democrat over the Republican, by 81% to 19%."

These quotes indicate that the data is based on readers of the economist through the internet.

The reason why some countries are listed as "not enough information" is because they didn't have 10 votes. "At least ten votes are needed within each country for its delegates to become available."

This is all on the analysis page:

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12498538

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