Singularities of the US Elections

If the world voted in the United States elections, Barack Obama would have four votes for each Romney vote. This was shown by a study from Gallup International conducted in 30 different countries. Sixty percent of the people consulted follow this election.

Of them, 81 percent would vote for Obama and 19 percent for Romney. Russia is very close to the average, with 83 percent choosing the president and 17 percent his rival. The most support for Obama (surpassing 95 percent) can be found in Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Iceland, Ireland and Denmark. The preference for Romney is higher in Israel (65 percent), Pakistan (44 percent) and Georgia (36 percent). Four years ago, when Obama was competing against McCain, the Democrat also had four votes for each one in favor of the Republican. And, in the Bush vs. Kerry election, the ratio was almost identical.

The last three U.S. presidential elections have been globalized through the media and this has allowed for polls to gauge how the rest of the world would vote. Four years ago, the primary between Hillary Clinton and Obama was the first globalized one, in the sense that it acquired global interest through television. The world’s opinion, so markedly favoring the Democratic candidate, is similar to the leanings registered within minority groups in the United States. Both Hispanics and African Americans favor Obama seven out of ten. Given the strong support that minorities have for the Democrats, some demographic estimates, when extended to the political arena, hold that this is the last election that a Republican could win. The increasing numbers of Hispanics, through high birth rates and immigration, project a firm increase in the percentage of Hispanic voters in the upcoming years.

The role of the televised debates has changed the results of the election in two of the past nine elections. The first election in which the debates were televised was in 1960, when Kennedy won over Nixon by only 200,000 votes, due to the better performance of the former in front of the cameras. The second time was in 2000, when Bush junior asserted himself over Gore – who was the favorite for having been Clinton’s vice president – dominating the polls and in the end winning a controversial election, resolved by a very small number of votes in Florida. Romney, who, unexpectedly, seemed firmer and better prepared, won the first debate.

The second debate showed a firmer Obama. The third, to which both candidates arrived while being tied at the polls, did not showcase any substantial changes.

If Obama wins, it would be the first time that a president wins a second term with such a weak economy and high unemployment numbers since the 1930’s. Even if he had to handle a crisis he did not create and that started before he became president, after four years it is difficult to continue blaming the prior administration. After 44 consecutive months with an unemployment figure that does not dip below eight percent, Romney can make Obama responsible for the lack of results on the economic front. During the debates, new low unemployment numbers were confirmed, but Obama did not capitalize on this new situation.

Political history only gives reference points and is not a concrete predictor of what will happen. Furthermore, rules derived from historic constants can be broken or altered by exceptions. Until Kennedy, no candidate that was not White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant had won the presidency, and that changed. The same thing happened with Obama, the first African American president in almost two and a half centuries of U.S. history.

This election is the first one in which, of the four individuals running, none can be classified as a WASP (White, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant). Of the 44 presidents the United States has had, only two (Kennedy and Obama) cannot be described by that characterization, which extends to the majority of those who have exercised the political and economic power in that country. The latest statistics show that, for the first time, Protestants account for less than 50 percent of the total population. The two candidates to the vice presidency (Biden and Ryan) are Catholic. Romney is not Protestant, given that Mormonism is a stand-alone sect with Christian origins.