US elections 2008

The whole world is watching - but do they understand?

by Barbara Giudice

Article published on the 2008-06-07 Latest update 2008-06-16 14:43 TU

The goal - the White House in Washington
(Photo: Wikimedia)

The US presidential campaign has generated interest and passion throughout the world. Everyone feels that the result will affect their lives. Here in France, as elsewhere, Barack Obama's campaign to become the Democratic Party's nominee has attracted passionate interest.

"I'm supporting Obama," Miriam, a student of international affairs at one of Paris's universities, told me in late March. "We should all have the vote - not just Americans - because, whatever happens, it'll affect us all."

After the gruelling primary and caucus season, and with the campaign under way, there is growing desire to know about the candidates, their platforms, the parties. 

This political drama is arcane, multi-layered and evolving. 

If you don’t understand that United States politics functions in a federal system, with competing interests from the individual states, who are jealous of their prerogatives, and a central government with often differing goals, you will not understand American politics.

In order to get the politics, you need to know what makes the US system work.

Let’s take one example.  

Observers note that voter turnout in presidential polls is consistently low in the United States. Whatever the circumstances of a particular presidential election, the reasons for that state of affairs is also structural.

On election day Americans vote for a set number of electors in their own states in a winner-take-all vote.  It is these electors (the Electoral College) who vote for the president and vice-president. 

The winner in each state gets all the electors of that state.  So voter turnout is less important than winning the state by whatever margin.  There are, of course, other reasons for low voter turnout, but there is also less pressure from the various campaigns to increase that turnout than in a system in which the popular vote counts nationwide.