The nail-biting on this planet over the 2008 U.S. presidential election is quite a spectacle. And the question on almost everyone’s lips is this: Will Americans actually do what all the opinion polls say they will – elect a Black man to the U.S. presidency? Clearly – the ‘Bradley Effect’ has once and for all become a part of global electoral lore.
For France’s Le Figaro, editorialist Pierre Rousselin puts it this way:
Three days from the vote, Barack Obama is the favorite. The polls, which have never been so numerous, are all in agreement. Analysts in the United States and policy makers around the world expect to see the Black candidate enter the White House on January 20th. A revolution!
But beware! Nothing is done until the Americans have voted. … The bigger question is whether the opinion polls are telling the truth. This competition has no prior equivalent. How many Americans who would normally vote Democratic, when they enter the voting booth, will choose McCain because of Obama’s skin color?”
Editorial by Pierre Rousselin
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
November 1, 2008
France – Le Figaro – Original Article (French)
Never has an election campaign in the United States been so long, so expensive, and so blanketed by the media. Everything has been said about the unprecedented confrontation between the two non-standard candidates, the winner of which will lead America through one of the most difficult periods in its history.
Three days from the vote, Barack Obama is the favorite. The polls, which have never been so numerous, are all in agreement. Analysts in the United States and policy makers around the world expect to see the Black candidate enter the White House on January 20th. A revolution!
But beware! Nothing is done until the Americans have voted. And lest we forget that a presidential election in the United States, because of the Electoral College, comes down to fifty simultaneous consultations in each state of the Union. Which, if the election is tight, increases the uncertainly by tenfold.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated and English-language foreign press coverage of the U.S. election
