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[1675]?(2008-11-11)
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What a strange article. Our process for picking a president is very transparent. Some may say it is not fair, but it is certainly transparent.
Compared to the decades of family dictatorship in Singapore, maybe the author should examine his/her own dictator first.
Many rejoiced the victory of Pres.-elect Obama in their recent U.S. presidential election, and that feeling are shared by many Filipinos! However, the points that was raised by Mr. Cheng Mengyun, that a country who chooses or elect their leaders are practicing democracy, thereby a democratic country. Maybe at a certain level of the process, they could be…but as the author of this column pointed, they are not! The candidates were already selected before they are presented to the delegates of their party! Maybe what is developing in American electoral system is an initial form of populism. Whether it will be a right wing populism or left wing populism is something we will watch!
Both this article and the individual commenting above show how little those outside America understand about its political structure as well as how little effort they have made to find out.
Candidates are chosen by an extensive primary process wherein anyone in America may choose to run for President (as long as they fall within the guidelines established in the US Constitution). The most popular candidates that have announced their candidacy are then put in front of voters from each state during the primary process. The winner of each state’s primary (voted upon by the citizens of that state) is awarded a certain number of delegates that vote during that party’s convention.
After engaging in this process through many states and over several months, eventually a person will garner enough delegates to become that party’s nominee. The two winners of the primary process are then pitted against each other in a national general election.
Mr. Bush, for example, was governor of one of the largest states in the United States (Texas). In the year 2000, he and Mr. McCain were involved in a bitter primary battle. This is how he was selected. Mr. Reagan was governor of California. It’s called representative democracy.