Worldwide Blowout: Obama Leads McCain 9,009 to 228!
Have you seen this world popularity map at The Economist?
If the World could vote, according to the poll conducted online by The Economist, at the time of this posting, Barack Obama would lead John McCain by an eye-popping 9.009 to 228 in The Global Electoral College (GEC).
The GEC is a fictitious construct of the Economist created to show what would happen if the citizens of the world had a say in our U.S. election, based on similar rules as our Electoral College system.
Countries currently shown as strong, or leaning, McCain include: Iraq, Cuba, Sudan, Algeria, The Congo, Namibia, Greece, and Georgia; while Obama is the clear favorite of THE REST OF PLANET EARTH!
**** UPDATE: Obama now leads 9109 to 171, and the Sudan is now a toss-up.
All of this goes to reinforce my feeling that Obama is far more than just a "transformational" candidate, he is the centerpiece of a movement of global reach.
Our mantra of "PEACE" from the late sixties has been supplanted by the "YES WE CAN" of 2008. Where "Hands Across America" was a wonderful couple of weeks (even for people like me that got assigned way the heck out in the boonies), the Obama movement has the chance to really change the long term way we interact with the citizens of all nations and the very planet itself.
So Peace and Love to Gaia and to all my brothers and sisters. YES WE CAN!
(now, get out the VOTE!)
---------------------
VOTED? YES
---------------------
This is a quote from the Economist's text about their GEC:
"There have consequently been many attempts to reform the electoral-college system—over 700 so far—though until now nobody has suggested that the entire world be included."
Wrong-o my lads!
My "Modest Proposal" blog went up on October 21st.
The Economists' GEC went up October 23rd (figured by going back 165 pages to the first reader comments).
Someone on your staff is as brill as me, or you cribbed like the backseater you were at your red brick school!
At least give TPM credit for being there first!
October 25, 2008 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ya kicked the Economist's ass, Lux!
Don't worry though, you all are gonna whup the GOP on the 4th.
October 26, 2008 12:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hope so, Quinn, I truely hope so.
October 26, 2008 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
But enough wounded pride...just check out that map and use your cursor to see the individual country percentages!!
Maybe the world should have some say in the process since American politics have become so dysfunctional as to allow the possibility of an entity like Palin ascending to the Oval Office.
Now don't start throwing objects at me!!
I know the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of TPM readers disagree. But their disagreement is likely predicated on the belief that we still have the ability to fix our own problems.
Meanwhile Bush is ordering the DOJ into Ohio to throw thousands of voter registrations into limbo in this key battleground state.
If McCain "wins", will the "we can fix it ourselves" people, faced with another four to eight years of Republican overlordship, still believe the system is internally self-correcting?
--Lux (very gloomy tonight at the thought of Mukasey getting involved in Ohio)
October 26, 2008 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lux, my belief that your idea is a bit loopy is actually predicated on the idea that many, many people in the world don't have a very broad or deep understanding of the United States or how it works. They see the stereotypical American and judge us based on very little real information, similar to the way we judge other countries and cultures--through our own lens.
That said, giving the rest of the world a bit more input into American foreign policy isn't the worst idea. We've never been great at that, but we've had times in our history when we've been more multilateral than we are now. Hopefully, Obama will win and we will be headed back in that direction.
October 26, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I can't blame you for coming to that conclusion since in the original blog I never fleshed out the process as I envision it so you were left with the idea it would be a worldwide popular vote.
I think that a popular vote would not work for the reasons you mention and just the sheer costs & logistical near-impossibility of getting the world's citizenry to vote.
No, what I had in mind was something far less grand. I would give the worlds great regional powers or associations one or two votes each. Not each UN country...that would not work in my opinion, so I differ from what the Economist put up. In my blog, I mentioned the EU, the OAS, Russia, China, Japan. I would add to that the LAS and the African Union . The vote would be cast by the respective parliamentary bodies of each political unit, or by conference vote. The citizenry would not be involved outside their part in choosing the members of the parliamentary bodies that did vote.
Practically, in the US there would have to be a constitutional amendment changing the terms of the electoral college...allowing 6 to 12 new votes from non-domestic sources. The plurality conditions would also change accordingly.
TheraP pointed out some pitfalls and I concur. There would be a tendency for quid pro quos and also the tendency for ruling elites to ensure the persistence of their local adherents' factions to stay in power. A more populist approach would get around both pitfalls, but fall prey to the "loopy" criticism.
The idea has a lot of problems, but it also has a lot of promise: of a world of intercommunity and shared interests, a world less prone to warfare perhaps.
And for that a little "loopiness" would be a small price to pay.
Internationalist Lux
October 26, 2008 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I should add that in the ideal, the system would be reciprocal: if we allow you to have a say, however small it actually is, in our elections, than you grant us a proportional input in your own process.
We all become stakeholders or shareholders in each other's governments! But the vast majority control would still reside in the home process.
October 26, 2008 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Strange. Most McCain countries are in Africa.
October 26, 2008 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lux, if McCain "wins" this will have been the last "free election", no?
If McCain "wins", what will we, each of us, contemplate doing?
October 26, 2008 2:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good question. Perhaps the question. We should have put 2 + 2 together in 2000 when the exit polls were contradicted by the tabulations. And then again in 2004. And they shut the exit polling process down with all kinds of specious excuses.
I have been hoping the pre-vote poll margins would be sufficient to make altering the outcome so facially implausible that the real vote totals would be allowed to stand.
If McCain "wins", then we have the stark choice of living in a country where the election process is corrupt or trying to fix that system. Democracy is still viable at the local levels and we can work upwards from there.
But I am not so gloomy this morning! I believe the landslide is on the way and there is no amount of vote jiggering or registration challenges or voting roll purges that the GOP can mount that will alter the outcome.
October 26, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink