What impact do American elections have on people around the world? François Sergent of France’s Liberation writes, ‘Like it or not, the American elections are often more important for the world than our internal elections. Imagine the world today, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, not to mention global warming, if Bush hadn’t been improperly, so improperly elected eight years ago.’
By François Sergent
Translated By Kate Davis
February 9, 2008
France - Liberation - Original Article (French)
Super Tuesday wasn’t as super as anticipated. Presented as a great roll-of-the-dice in the complex American process of selecting presidential candidates, it came out a tie, especially for the Democratic side. So, are we making too much of America’s polls? One of our colleagues used the headline “The French Vote for Obama.” Which isn’t quite the issue here, but it shows that this election elicits passion. Because of Obama, his color and the hope he inspires in America and beyond the borders of the United States. And because of the Clintons, of course, with whom politics and family are a good mix. And let us not forget McCain, an atypical Republican - against torture and tax cuts, however for the war in Iraq - but despite all this chosen in this country that is said to be so conservative.
There are many reasons to follow this election, even if there’s still a long way to go. Because like it or not, the American elections are often more important for the world than our internal elections. Imagine the world today, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, not to mention global warming, if Bush hadn’t been improperly, so improperly elected eight years ago.
Is the Democratic Party about to rip itself asunder just before the general election begins? Pierre Rousselin of the Le Figaro warns, ‘For a party that thought it would prevail easily, in this division there is the germ of an identity crisis even more menacing, given that the Obama-Clinton duel risks deepening the fissures.’
By Pierre Rousselin
Translated By Kate Davis
EDITORIAL
February 7, 2008
France - Le Figaro - Original Article (French)
The first stage in the race for the White House just ended on a Super Tuesday that, as expected, turned the dual competition in a new direction.
In the Democratic camp, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton essentially tied. To break the tie, they’ll fight it out for a long time yet, perhaps up to the convention in August. In the interval, they are likely to divide the party, making it more difficult to mobilize voters when it’s time to win the battle in November.
Among Republicans, in contrast, John McCain rose to the top. He can begin preparing his strategy for a head-to-head with the man or woman who will prevail among Democrats. On both sides, the spectacle continues.
The first act was played under the banner of change. Very far behind and confronting a candidate who a bit too early had presented herself as inevitable, Barack Obama has surfed on the need for renewal, which is breaking over the United States at the end of two terms under the unpersuasive George W. Bush.
With panache, the Black candidate has emerged as a serious challenger capable of lifting peoples’ enthusiasm. On another note, Hillary Clinton has demonstrated the strength of her organization and the seriousness of her program. She has stood up very well. For these two, the second act will be as hard fought as the first.
For the Republicans’ part, they have taken up the battle in great disorder, without really believing in it. The game had been very wide open before John McCain turned out to be the best. Despite his 71 years, he’s the one considered the new man, with an atypical candidacy that doesn’t really conform to the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. With no serous rival, he can begin organizing his camp.
It seems that not all Europeans favor Barack Obama. João Marques de Almeida of Portugal’s leading business daily Diario Economico writes, ‘For a liberal, center-right European, John McCain is the preferred North American candidate … There are few things better than to see a free politician.’ He goes on to argue against what was in the end Mitt Romney’s greatest appeal: ‘In times of crisis, it’s more important to have a politician with experience than one with an understanding of economics.’
By João Marques de Almeida*
Translated By Brandi Miller
February 7, 2008
For a liberal, center-right European, John McCain is the preferred North American candidate. For his liberal views of society and the economy, he’s preferable to any other Republican candidate. I have the greatest respect for the Christian religion and its unique place in Western history (of which, incidentally, I am very proud), but I think that years of sermons in churches of the southern United States, where one rapidly loses rationality, is not the best preparation for taking power.
Neither does this position expose any particular dislike for the Democratic candidates, despite the fact that Bill Clinton’s hyper-active promotion of his wife causes me some discomfort. As a matter of principle, it’s not good for an unelected person to have such enormous influence over a future president, as would happen if Hillary Clinton were elected.
As for Obama, he undoubtedly has political talent and charisma. However I’m not convinced that he’s prepared to be the American president. I identify much more with McCain’s vision of the world and its dangers and threats than with the positions of Clinton or Obama. There are four questions that from Europe’s perspective are fundamental: keeping troops in Iraq; preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons; engaging in World Trade Organization talks to reinforce the global free trade system; reforming the trans-Atlantic alliance and reforming NATO in 2009. I’m not sure a Democratic president will endeavor to accomplish these four objectives like McCain would.
In addition to these reasons, there are three other reasons that lead me to look even enthusiastically to McCain’s candidacy. The first has to do with McCain’s character and personality. There are few things better than to see a free politician. …
READ THE REST ON WORLDMEETS.US, along with our continuing foreign press news coverage of the United States. Tune in during the next 24 hours for translated U.S. election coverage from China, Portugal, France and Brazil.
After Super Tuesday, John McCain told local supporters they were “a little bit closer to the day when mothers in Arizona might be able to tell their children that someday they could grow up to be president of the United States.”
That wry comment has a history with relevance to McCain’s situation today. Since Arizona became a state in 1912, the only other resident to win nomination for President was Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 lost to Lyndon Johnson by a crushing margin.
His defeat reflected both the mistrust of “extremism” at that time and the emergence of a conservative movement that culminated in Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 and is now in crisis after George W. Bush’s two terms to start the new century.
As McCain moves toward becoming the second Arizonan to make a run for the White House, his candidacy reflects that history and raises questions about that other turning point in Republican history.
Goldwater aroused the fears of his party that he was too conservative. McCain is facing doubts over whether he is conservative enough.
Their Arizona temperaments are part of the equation–plain-spoken, proud and independent. Goldwater was just as mistrusted by the Eastern Republican Establishment of his time as McCain now is by the Evangelical Base today.
Now be honest. Wasn’t Tuesday evening one of the most exciting nights ever in American politics? It had more drama and twists than many presidential general elections. The onrush of results and exit polls in twenty-four states–and let’s not forget about American Samoa–was dizzying and exhilarating.
Our readers, mainly political junkies, already know the basics. To refresh your memory, in case you are in the same kind of sleepless fog and hoarse stupor that we are, please see the two accompanying maps, one for the Democrats and one for the Republicans, showing which candidates won which states. The number appearing within the boundaries of each Super Tuesday state is the percentage of the vote for the winning candidate. In a future essay, once a little time has passed, we will return to the events of this remarkable day to evaluate further the nation’s first truly national primary. True, in 1988 the first Super Tuesday included twenty states, but fourteen of them were in the South and Border-South region. By comparison, 2008’s Super Duper Tuesday had a selection of states from every region.
Are the 2008 elections destined to be bereft of the kind of divisive politics characterized by the Karl Rove electoral machine? Bernd Pickert of the German newspaper Die Tageszeitung writes, ‘The conservative wing of the Republicans, the party’s driving force under Bush, is torn by the battle between Huckabee and Romney and this time around will not have a major role. Finally, differences can be settled without taboos – finally reason and common sense have made a comeback to the debate in the United States.’
Commentary by Bernd Pickert
Translated By Ulf Behncke
February 6, 2008
Germany - Die Tageszeitung - Original Article (German)
The only clear winner of the elections on Super-Tuesday is named John McCain. The 71-year-old senator from Arizona has succeeded in restoring to himself the position of frontrunner. And yet both of his competitors, Mick Huckabee and Mitt Romney, claim that they too have been resoundingly confirmed – but that’s nonsense. They haven’t a chance. The Republican candidate for 2008 will be John McCain.
Things are different in the Democrats side: Hillary Clinton does indeed lead the delegate count, yet both she and Barack Obama have shown that they both have solid support from certain groups of voters. Clinton mobilizes the poor, the elderly, White women and Latinos. Support for Obama comes from Read the rest of this entry »
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are bringing to the fore the neglected demographic in more than half a century of empowerment of minorities.
In trying to explain why the surge for Obama failed to become a tidal wave on Super Tuesday, pundits are honing in on the behavior of the largest silent segment of society–white men.
In parsing the results, Adam Nagourney of the New York Times concludes that 2008 has “cleaved the party neatly in two: the Clinton Democrats and the Obama Democrats. Age, race and gender have become the dividing lines; nothing comes close to mattering as much.
“The Obama Democratic Party is made up of younger voters (under 44), blacks, white men (to a more limited extent) and independents…The Clinton Democratic Party is the party of women, older voters, Hispanics and also some white men.”
From this point of view, of all the demographic armies marching in lockstep, only white men have failed to jump into the ranks on one side or another and stay there.
Mitt Romney is quitting his campaign for president, having made the final decision last night, according to a campaign source who asked to remain anonymous.
He made the final decision last night, as he was preparing his speech for Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, the source said.
“The speech will speak for itself,” the source said.
“It’s virtually impossible for Romney or Huckabee to be the nominee just based on the arithmetic.”
– McCain adviser Charlie Black, quoted by NBC News, noting that McCain has 775 delegates, Romney had 284 and Huckabee has 205.
Added Black: “It takes 1,191 to clinch the nomination. There are 963 left to be chosen, so Romney or Huckabee would have to have all of them — all of them — to get to 1,191. Now you can’t do that because a majority of those 963 are chosen in proportional primaries, which means you’d have to get 100% if the vote to get them all.”
CNN’s John King and Dana Bash suggest that Mitt Romney may be ready to drop his White House bid. Mitt Romney and top aides Read the rest of this entry »
February 7th, 2008 by MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor
I spent much of yesterday thinking about Super Tuesday and voraciously reading whatever I could get my hands on (rather, whatever I could click on). I stand by my initial view, expressed in the early-morning hours after California was called, that Obama won. By that, I don’t just mean he won more states (which he did) and delegates (which he also did) but that he won by blocking Clinton’s path to victory and by putting himself in a position to win the nomination, as well as by gaining both credibility and momentum by winning impressively all over the country and by drawing even, roughly speaking, with his opponent, recently the evident frontrunner.
Super Tuesday was supposed to be Clinton’s day, the “national” primary day that would propel her to the nomination. Obama was expected to do well in the early states, in Iowa and South Carolina, and he won both, but Clinton regained her footing in New Hampshire and seemed to have everything in place to meet early expectations, namely, expectations of victory. But now Obama is back, raising extraordinary amounts of money and looking good heading into the next set of primaries and caucuses. If he wins all or most of those votes — Louisiana, Washington, and Nebraska on Saturday; Maine on Sunday; Maryland and Virginia next Tuesday; Wisconsin and Hawaii the following Tuesday — he could pull well ahead of Clinton going into the big March 4 votes in Ohio and Texas. Clinton looks good in those two states, but the hybrid system in Texas may benefit Obama and, with Obama having a lot of time to campaign personally in Ohio — and his numbers tend to go up when he campaigns personally anywhere — he could pull that one out, especially if he’s riding the momentum of other victories.
This is not to say the race is over. No, this just seems to be the best-case scenario for Obama going forward, one that would give him a significant delegate lead, and perhaps even the perception of virtual invincibility, after March 4. What is amazing about Obama’s solid performance yesterday — and this is why I think he won in the larger scheme of things — is that he was able to put himself in this position, a position that seemed remote at best just last week. Of course, Clinton could still pull off victories over the next few weeks, surprising the media and slowing (if not reversing) Obama’s momentum, and could win both Ohio and Texas, and then, after that, other big states like Pennsylvania. And, of course, there may be (and are likely to be) some surprises along the way. And it could still be a long, tight race. Read the rest of this entry »
Some odds and ends, in no particular order, as we motor away from Super Tuesday into The Great Unknown:
Silliest Concern Going into Super Tuesday: That Hillary Clinton would win California because the people who attended a primary eve Grateful Dead fundraiser for Barack Obama would be so wacked out the next day that they wouldn’t make it to the polls.
Silliest Concern Coming Out of Super Tuesday: That evangelical blabbermouth James Dobson will have a major say in the November election.
The Ugly Rearing of Head Award: Goes to the return of the destructive identity politics have has dogged the Democratic Party in the past. Exit polls showed that most women voted for Clinton and most blacks for Obama.
Amazing Factoid: Obama has more money on hand than all of the other candidates in both parties combined, or at least until Mitt Romney writes himself another check.
Speaking of Money: Romney has spent $1.6 million per delegate.
The Big Super Tuesday Dig Award: Goes to former White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer for saying that “There is no doubt . . . we hope and pray every night to run against Hillary Clinton.”
The Gratuitous Super Tuesday Dig Award: Goes to Clinton for saying that “I want to thank all my friends and family—particularly my mother, who was born before women could vote and is watching her daughter on this stage tonight.”
Phantoms of the Opera: Come Democratic Convention time, will those blackballed Michigan and Florida delegates matter?
February 6th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
In the face of a Super Tuesday that essentially ended in a draw and looking down the ‘pike at battling rival Senator Barack Obama (who is equipped with a big bankroll recently fattened by a huge infusion of Internet contributions), Hillary Clinton has reportedly loaned her own campaign $5 million.
And, another report says, some seniors staffers are now working without pay.
According to The Politico, you can now list Hillary Clinton along with Mitt Romney as politicos who seem to be taking a page from billionaire Ross Perot’s book and becoming major campaign contributors to a vital cause (their own political campaigns):
Senator Hillary Clinton confirmed at a press conference in Virginia this afternoon that she’d loaned her campaign $5 million, and said, “The results last night proved the wisdom of my investment..”
Spokesman Howard Wolfson emailed with the news minutes earlier:
Late last month Senator Clinton loaned her campaign $5 million.The loan illustrates Sen. Clinton’s commitment to this effort and to ensuring that our campaign has the resources it needs to compete and win across this nation. We have had one of our best fundraising efforts ever on the web today and our Super Tuesday victories will only help in bringing more support for her candidacy.
As I reported earlier, she’s drawing on a pool of personal wealth estimated to be as much as $41 million, as well as a reported payout to Bill Clinton of $20 million from the Los Angeles billionaire manager Ron Burkle.
Another report says some of her key campaign staffers are now working without pay to help out with the cash crunch.
Is there a risk that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are so well-matched and well-resourced that they’ll wear themselves out before the race against the Republicans even begins? According to this analysis from Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, ‘Obama and Clinton are the Yin and Yang of the Democratic Party. The two could annihilate one another instead of their opponents of the opposite party. … Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will have to come up with something, if they don’t want their enormous forces to nuetralize one another.’ …
By Sabine Muscat
Translated By James Jacobson
February 6, 2008
Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)
The reason the Democratic race remains unsettled after Super Tuesday has a name: Missouri. This state in the Midwest has always proven to have a good sense of the candidate that would ultimately prevail.
So yesterday, Missouri voters issued their long-awaited verdict: 49 to 48 for Obama. In none of the other 22 states in which Democratic primaries were held, was the result so close. But the overall results from the other states demonstrated a similar stand-off: 11 for Obama, 11 for Clinton – if she wins New Mexico, where the vote count hasn’t been finalized. Read the rest of this entry »
February 6th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The race for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination may not be totally over — but Super Tuesday was a watershed for the GOP due to the way Arizona Senator John McCain stacked up his victories: they were victories largely without rock-ribbed conservative support:
Republican John McCain won a sweeping victory on Super Tuesday even without winning the conservative base of his party, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought to a draw, virtually guaranteeing a long and sharply contested Democratic contest ahead.
The voting in the Republican primaries solidified McCain’s position as the GOP front-runner and dramatically lengthened the odds against prime challenger Mitt Romney. At the same time, a surprisingly strong showing by Mike Huckabee in several Southern states underscored the continuing importance of evangelical Christians in the GOP.
So the Evangelicals continued to show political clout. And what about the party’s most self-avowedly proud conservatives? The ones who insist on a litmus test and feel the party would be damaged by running someone who might be considered a moderate:
Notably, though, McCain failed to make inroads among conservative Republicans at the heart of the Republican Party: More than six in 10 GOP primary voters said they were conservatives — and only 31 percent of them voted for McCain. Still, McCain’s strong showing among independents and moderates, as well as his ability to attract crossover Democrats, could prove to be an advantage if he captures the nomination.
This suggests a couple of things:
(1) Conservative talk show hosts failed in their attempt to stop McCain. A monitoring of their shows indicated that many of them had become virtually nonstop commercials for Romney, complete with Read the rest of this entry »
The results suggest that money and political muscle are not the be-all and end-all for getting to the White House.
John McCain now has a clear path to the Republican nomination, while Mike Huckabee remains to haunt his hopes for a unified Party and may very well end up as his running mate.
Barack Obama has leveled the playing field with Hillary Clinton, cutting into her lead in the delegate count to the point where the once-certain nominee is now calling for more debates to bolster her chances.
What Obama and Huckabee have in common is that a year ago they were candidates with messages who didn’t have the money, the name recognition or the organization to challenge the Clintons’ political juggernaut, Rudy Giuliani’s 9/11 aura or Mitt Romney’s wealth.
But somehow, in the face of those odds, they persuaded different segments of the electorate that they represent the best hope for change from the dismal Bush years.
Six months ago, McCain, better-known but not beloved by conservatives, had slipped off the radar in the polls. But here he is, the front runner as those with more money, celebrity and willingness to pander have gone under.
Super Tuesday doesn’t justify a Pollyanna vision of Presidential politics, but it does undermine the view of cynics who claim that it’s only about money and power.
In one very important respect — that of voter perceptions — Barack Obama couldn’t lose on Super Tuesday and Hillary Clinton couldn’t win.
Despite the fact that Clinton won most of the big states yesterday and has more delegates overall, the die is cast (or in Julius Caesar’s immortal words: alea jacta est) for a headlong scramble through the remaining primaries, and Clinton is in trouble. Clinton is in trouble because Obama has momentum, while the perceptions that have accrued to the candidates — largely positive for Obama and largely negative for Clinton in my mind — are now pretty much set in stone.
Obama has climbed some tall mountains in overcoming the inherent advantages of the Clinton campaign, including its attached-at-the-hip relationship with the Democratic Party establishment. He hasn’t had to cry in public even once, let alone try to evoke sympathy because he’s a minority dude, and except for an occasional misfire has conducted himself with a take-me-as-I-am demeanor and dignity that has inspired millions of people who didn’t know him from Adam a few short months ago.
Meanwhile, Clinton helicoptered to the top of the tallest mountain and from the outset branded herself as the incumbent, but since then has had to scratch and claw to try to stay on top. Her tears on cue and gender whinging are beyond tiresome, while the coldly calculated use of her husband and other surrogates to sling mud is contemptuous. She may be a decent person at heart, but has permitted only fleeting glimpses of her “true” self because her campaign is so scripted.
If there is a tiebreaker for me, and I suspect many other voters as well, it is the candidates’ sharply divergent positions on the Iraq war: Obama is one of the few senators to oppose it from the jump, while Clinton has bobbed and weaved as public opinion has ebbed and flowed.
If the nominee, she will be accurately saddled with the flip-flopper label that helped doom John Kerry in 2004. If president, she would continue to embrace this fool’s mission.
February 5th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
CNN’s election center shows that with 10 percent of the vote in, Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator John McCain are ahead in their parties’ respective 2008 Presidential nomination primaries.
This obviously could change throughout what some expect will be a long night of counting — a night that could actually extend beyond the night due to mail-in ballots.
CLICK HERE for constantly-updated results. But at this writing (8:51 p.m. PST) it shows that with 10 percent of the vote in, Clinton has 497,842 votes, or 55 percent; Obama so far has 286,566 with 32 percent of the votes; and John Edwards (who is no longer in the race) has 93,697 or 10 percent percent of the votes.
On the Republican side, McCain has 341,709 or 43 percent of the vote; former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has 201, 181 or 26 percent of the vote; former Arizona Gov. Mike Huckabee has 92,867 or 12 percent of the vote; former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (no longer in the race) has 77,973 or 10 percent of the vote and Rep. Ron Paul has 29,609 or 4 percent of the vote.
It may be a long night…and perhaps even longer in California since before the vote officials indicated that it may take a while to count all of the state’s whopping number of mail-in ballots.
February 5th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Early returns suggest Arizona Senator John McCain has picked up some early victories with the help of moderates at the same time that the Democratic Presidential nomination race is showing some voting along racial lines.
News reports say primaries have been called in Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut so far in favor of McCain. He’s getting moderates votes but is clearly being rejected by many conservatives. The AP:
John McCain gained a solid victory Tuesday in the New Jersey Republican primary with the strong backing of moderates and voters worried about the economy, but still facing resistance among conservatives and those unhappy with his stance on illegal immigration.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama struggled for Democratic votes in a contest that would give the nation its first woman or first black presidential nominee. White women favored Clinton, while blacks overwhelming chose Obama, according to early results of an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.
Although moderates preferred McCain by a 5-to-1 margin over Mitt Romney, they split the votes of conservatives, a group that accounted for half the GOP turnout, the poll found.
At this (early) writing, the Drudge Report has this list up on its front page:
AL: OBAMA
AR: CLINTON
DE: OBAMA
GA: OBAMA
IL: OBAMA
MA: CLINTON
NY: CLINTON
NJ: CLINTON
OK: CLINTON
TN: CLINTON
February 5th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
Early returns suggest it’s going to be a long night and that when it’s over the Democratic race for the 2008 Presidential nomination will be far from over:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York took two of the big early prizes Super Tuesday in a coast-to-coast struggle for delegates in the grueling Democratic campaign, winning Massachusetts and her home state of New York, NBC News projected.
NBC News also projected Clinton to win in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Sen. Barack Obama got two big wins in his home state, Illinois and Georgia.
Georgia was Obama’s second straight Southern triumph, and, like an earlier victory in South Carolina, it was built on a wave of black votes. The 87 delegates at stake in Georgia’s primary were expected to be divided between Obama and Clinton in rough proportion to the votes.
African-Americans accounted for slightly more than half the ballots cast in Georgia, and he was gaining about 90 percent of them. Clinton won nearly 60 percent of the white votes, a reduced advantage compared to her showing in earlier states.
In Illinois, 153 delegates were at stake.
“It’s good to be home,” said Obama, who voted in Hyde Park, Ill. “It’s nice to know that I’ve got so much support back home.
NOTE: We’ll be posting returns as we see some races being called, but as a policy decision we’ll avoid doing a lot of posts calling states based simply on exit polls. There have been too many controversies swirling around the leaking of these partial results. Notably, that they have not often reflected the actual final results.
![[Le Temps, Switzerland]](http://worldmeets.us/images/hillaryinfidelty_letemps.gif)
![[The Telegraph, U.K.]](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/graphics/2008/02/11/ixd11big.gif)
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