US Presidential Debate

As part of my coverage of the US Presidential race (where as usual I called the Clinton / Obama race wrong ..... but I did get McCain right!) ...

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain 1st Presidential Debate

  I watched the US Presidential debate yesterday.

Nothing particularly struck me, except that if that was in the UK they would both be booed off the stage for boring us to death ..... we prefer real confrontation (see Prime Ministers Question Time .... or better the Aussie PM QT LOL), and obviously the politics was that of the softer right (Democrats) v harder right (Republicans), which in 'socialist' ridden Europe seems lopsided, but nothing odd, except that the fear of a mistake was greater than the chance to knock out the opponent.

Then I went to the BBC "Have Your Say" page to see what US contributors thought ... but I was struck by once again seeing "anti-American" comments dressed in sheer ignorance .... one of the themes was on the "dumbing down of the debate" .... I don't particularly care about the anti-Americanism (although its usually misinformed comment) because the US is occasionally very singular in its interests e.g. "We saved your asses in 1945" .... kinda deserves some ridicule, however its just plain stupid to treat the US as a kinda 'Big UK', it isn't.

The USA spans a continent, and that is a fact that too many non US citizens forget. The consequence of this is that politicians have to "dumb it for the masses", so that the message is heard the same all over. Think of a 'President' of the EU trying to pass a message in a TV debate to both Poland and Spain, or the UK and Greece ..... virtually impossible except in 'sound bites'. 

The States in the US are very different in out look e.g Alabama and California, only the language is the same. Given that, the debate was about on par for what an EU wide equivalent would be like.