U.S Presidential Nomination

 

The latest episode of American Gladiators is not expected to be a ratings-puller. 

I’m not sure what it is about the current U.S presidential nomination race that’s addictive to watch. Granted, Fox News has possibly the hottest female anchors available on Singapore TV (I’ll watch Megyn Kelly read the dictionary), but I suspect for a foreigner, especially one not particularly exposed to a legislative party and electoral system as contentious as that in America, it becomes mainly another kind of entertainment, for better or worse.

And it can be entertaining, especially the party debates. At times it’s like an intellectual Jerry Springer, with candidates throwing curveballs and jabs wrapped in rhetoric of race, patriotism and ‘change’, among other things. The crowd bristles at every veiled attack by a candidate and swoons and cheers to each comeback response. All make for terrific TV.

You don’t learn a great deal about American politics by watching this stuff on TV. In fact for the politically unsophisticated (I’m guessing that’s most of us) you’ll be hard-pressed to pick out any differences between the Democrat and the Republican lines of argument and rhetoric. It still comes down to Iraq, the economy, medical, education and global warming. And maybe who’s got the better hairdo.

What’s interesting, and it struck me after reading a Newsweek article, is that only some 126 million Americans vote, yet the result is felt by 6.6 billion people. To quote the article: “The president is constrained domestically by many constitutional checks and balances, but this is far less true in foreign affairs.” So much for spreading democracy to the world (not that I have any solution).

In a few weeks it’ll be clear who will be the two presidential nominees slugging it out for the big one in November. For the Dems, it looks like it’s between the new kid Barack Obama and Hillary C, while for the Reps the money’s on war-hero John McCaine (no, not the guy in Die Hard – that’s John McClane).

One thing’s for sure, I’m not changing channels. Nothing against CNN, but I like my American politics blonde and easy on the eyes.