If the images of 200,000-plus Berliners crowding to see Barack Obama seemed surprising to US observers, they shouldn't have been. Outside the US, it's hard to imagine why the US presidential election should even be close.
Environics: A massive majority of Canadians would like to see Senator Barack Obama win the American presidential election to be held on November 4, 2008 according to a new national poll of 2,025 Canadians conducted by Environics Research. This continues a pronounced trend among Canadians over the past decade toward favouring Democratic presidential candidates over Republicans. The surveyshows that seven in ten Canadians (69%) would most like to see Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama win the election, compared to just 15 percent who would prefer to see Republican John McCain win the election. Another 13 percent have no opinion or do not favour either candidate, and two percent volunteer other candidates.
It wasn't always the case that opinion was so lop-sided:
Environics founder Michael Adams noted: “If Canada had been a state in the United States in 1988 and 1992, we would have been a swing state. In the 2000 election, we would have voted like Vermont or Massachusetts. This year, Canada as a whole would vote like inner city Chicago.”
There was a time when the world might look to the US for political leadership. These days, we look at US politics in slack-jawed horror, and hope to hell that we can avoid the consequences of the lunacies it generates.
The more I watch Barack Obama's overall performance...
...the more I miss Hillary.
Posted by: Garth Wood | July 29, 2008 at 11:22 AM
I only wish I could vote in the US elections. Barack Obama is a true leader!
Posted by: Cyndi | July 31, 2008 at 11:45 PM
There's likely to be something of an electoral contest next Fall among the Liberals and New Democrats over who can properly claim the Obama mantle in Canada.
I heard Jack Layton at a BBQ for candidate Mike Bocking in Mission BC this weekend, just after the Vancouver Pride Parade, say that if the progressive voice in the US on energy, Democrats led by Obama, can be teamed up with the progressive voice in Canada, Layton's own New Democrats, the results could be very impressive.
Posted by: Rod Smelser | August 05, 2008 at 05:28 PM
canada seems to be prosecuting those with verbal opinion(oral or written)..
that of course is not lunacy
Posted by: em butler | August 09, 2008 at 12:33 PM
That's why I don't understand why Canadians don't kick Harper out of office he is another Bush Clone. But at least John McCain pretends that he wants to change things. Harper calls new ideas too risky.
Posted by: PKayne | October 05, 2008 at 04:01 PM