Repairing the Fracture, American-Style

NEVER has an American presidential election stirred up so much interest in the United States as this election has in the rest of the world. It is rare that democratic Primaries elicited this level of suspense. Just as we were led to believe that things were settled one way, Hillary Clinton surges after a moment of hesitation. In what looks increasingly like a race against time, with its escapades and confrontations, Hillary Clinton once again picked up the momentum, even if she still mathematically lags behind Obama. The tension is likely to last until the very end – the democratic Convention – if none of the candidates succeeds in outdistancing themselves from the other. If this pace id maintained, then the final decision will rest with 796 super delegates, personalities and important figures of the democratic party. Unless as Hillary may have proposed, a ticket Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama were possible. Another cause of the animation of the international interest in this election is the Republican Candidate, John McCain. An outsider, he is disliked by the Right in his party, by the Christian fundamentalists, in particular for his courageous stand against torture.

According to The New Republic weekly magazine, during George Bush’s presidential term, “McCain behaved like the most effective spokesman for the Democratic Party in Washington. McCain co-authored, together with the democratic senators John Edwards and Ted Kennedy, a bill on patient’s rights. He joined another democratic Senator in support of a law advocating the sale of generic drugs “.

This strange formation of a courageous Republican outsider on one side and two very good Democratic candidates on the other side, excites the hope that the two calamitous terms of George Bush would be followed of an international renaissance for America. Because America’s image is at its lowest point. In December 2007 a poll showed that the United States remained eminently unpopular.

When asked which country or “entity” represented the greatest threat to world stability, Canadians, Italians, Turks and Chinese did not answer “Bin Laden” but the United States! Washington is thus perceived to be more dangerous than the “the axis of evil” countries! Is it anti-Americanism “business as usual”? I wouldn’t be too sure; Americans themselves share this opinion. In the current mood of global anxiety, the international community, as well as the USA, are, more than anything, concerned over stability. However different each of the three candidates is from the other two, it is this fracture which they promise to repair.