The Brampton Guardian

Elections are not new things to North Americans and while Canadians might think that sometimes elections can get pretty rough here, our elections are nothing compared to the current American presidential electioneering. The American election is sometimes uplifting and sometimes down right vicious with candidates kept running facing down old rumours and comments made by pastors, supporters and family members.

In Canada, we are used to a minimum 36 day election period with election posturing going on all the time. In America, including the primaries, caucuses and election posturing, electioneering has been going on since October 2007. By the time the American election is finally over on Nov. 4, 2008, it will have lasted 14 months.

If Americans seem to be weary of the hurly burly of this extended campaign and if they seem to be leery of the claims and counterclaims, rumours and downright nasty attack adds and commentaries going on within the Democratic Party and in the media, notably the electronic media, then you really can't blame them for feeling that their vote doesn't mean a lot.

Although the campaigning is going full tilt, the American election really doesn't start until both parties select their presidential candidates-- the Democrats in August and the Republicans in September. From that date on, the American election will really become mean and vicious as competing ideologies vie for the hearts and minds of Americans. On election day Nov. 4, Americans will elect their president, 35 senators and all the 435 members of the House of Representatives. It's a big deal.

It's a really big deal for Canadians as well, since the future of NAFTA may be at stake depending on who wins. The North American Free Trade Agreement is the backbone of our trade deal with the U.S. All of Canada has benefited by NAFTA, especially Ontario and Quebec where the auto pact has established a North American production zone. But things are hard for working people in the U.S. with unemployment and mortgage foreclosures, illegal immigration and cheap labour, dependence on foreign oil from the Mid-East and cheap goods from China and the lack of dependable health plans to protect people if they get sick or even if they need to see a doctor. The Democratic front runners have pressed the magic button in the industrial states by calling for a re-negotiation of NAFTA. What that means is anyone's guess but whenever America sneezes, we catch cold.

But this election is not only about economic solutions, it is about where America is headed in the early part of the 21st century. It doesn't appear that there is much patience for the status quo. Opinion polls show that Americans have grown disillusioned with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and have no patience for the current administration in Washington. Such is the political weariness of a nation facing many difficult challenges. As interested observers, we can sympathize with the 'ennui', the world-weariness, Americans feel, but we know that this election will not only affect them but people all over the world.

If Americans elect a Republican majority to Congress and elect a Republican as president, they will continue their policies and minor changes will happen as they continue to tweak government. For Canadians, that means that NAFTA remains the main economic driver in North America and American foreign policy remains constant.

The 2008 American Election-- a Canadian dilemma?
Friday April 18 2008

By Terry Miller

If the Democrats win, depending on the candidate, then a major shift will occur in foreign policy and the American economy. Depending on the Democratic candidate, the new president will embark on changing the profile of the United States around world. How that will play out for Canadians is anybodies guess.

Canadians are not active participants in the American election but we are not passive bystanders either. We have much to lose or much to maintain. There is still a long way to go before the Republican and Democratic conventions in September and August. The Republicans, having virtually selected their presidential candidate, can wait to see if the Democrats rend themselves apart at the Democratic convention. The Democrats may find a ticket that unites them and if they do, they may capture the American government and a different American reality may emerge.Whichever party wins, Canadians will need to meet the political challenges that come with a new administration.

International Herald Tribune

U.S. election is all the rage in London

By Helen Kirwan-Taylor

Published: April 13, 2008

LONDON: For some time, Londoners have been using the word "we" when referring to the U.S. elections.

With the British news media reporting every detail from the campaign trail, many here feel that they are sitting, if not in the front row, then in the one directly behind.

"Of course it's our election," said John Gordon, a founder of Intelligence Squared, organizer of a series of public debates attended by London's well-heeled set.

Gordon has left dinner parties to watch coverage of the U.S. primaries. "American policy is inextricably linked to our own," he said. "We are the 53rd state. We know every intimate detail of Michelle's hair."

The presidential campaign, and especially the Democratic contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, is being avidly followed in many countries where U.S. power and influence shape everyday lives. Few can remember a United States election that has generated such interest abroad, just as it has at home.

But the obsession of the British is unusual, thanks to the large American expatriate population. Londoners have been falling upon American friends and acquaintances to discuss politics. They angle for invitations to cocktail parties that include Americans, and they are gate-crashing fund-raising events given by U.S. residents in support of the candidates.

"The Brits keep calling and asking if they can come to our events," said a representative for Americans Abroad for Obama, who asked not to be named so as to better dodge the requests.

Among themselves, Londoners deploy expressions like "Who are you backing?" when discussing the elections. There are discussions almost anyplace, from Soho cafés to doctors' waiting rooms.

"I have never known an American election that has gripped the British public quite like this one," Piers Morgan, a British journalist and television producer, said by e-mail. "All my friends are talking about it and asking how they can crash the party."

Especially among British members of the trans-Atlantic business and social class, people express the desire to hop a 747 and drop in on one of the primary states.

"Most of London's smart set already consider themselves Americans," said Adrian Monck, head of journalism and publishing at City University in London and an author of the forthcoming book "Can You Trust the Media?" ( "They all holiday in Nantucket and Cape Cod. Everyone here has watched the whole series of 'The West Wing.' If I had the funds, I would certainly throw money in theObama pot."

U.S. electoral laws prevent foreign citizens from donating directly to a political candidate, which would preclude buying a ticket to a fund-raising cocktail party or dinner.

But the laws cannot stop Londoners from attending as a nonpaying plus-one.

Ian Rosen, an American private-equity executive in London, hosted an Obama evening in February.

Later, he learned that British interlopers had mingled with the crowd, most likely spouses and guests of Americans.

"I was really surprised by how passionately the British feel about the U.S. elections," Rosen said. "Many have stronger feelings on the subject than we do."

Of the estimated 225,000 Americans residing in Britain, many work in fields like entertainment and finance.

When an American-born restaurateur, Ruthie Rogers, gave a glittering cocktail fund-raiser for Clinton last fall at her Chelsea home (designed by her husband, Richard Rogers, an architect), a few Brits attended.

One was Ian Osborne, a marketing executive. He sampled canapes with an audience of American investment bankers and some socialites, including Jerry Hall.

"I just stayed a few minutes," Osborne said. (This is British for not wanting to show off.)

An invitation to a $1,000-a-head cocktail party - or better yet, a dinner by candlelight in the home of a high-profile fund-raiser like Lynn Forrester de Rothschild, an American who is married to the banker Evelyn de Rothschild - is this season's hottest ticket.

The most talked-about London fund-raising event for Obama is scheduled for April 28 at the Notting Hill home of Elisabeth Murdoch, a daughter of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.

Elisabeth Murdoch is a U.S. citizen married to a British national (Matthew Freud, a public relations executive), as are other members of the host committee, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Rogers.

The e-mail invitation to the evening, where donors contributing $2,300 will be admitted to a "VIP pre-reception," states that it is limited to U.S. citizens or holders of U.S. green cards. But the invitation continues, "We do expect to be able to make an exception to allow attendance for accompanied non-U.S.-citizen spouses of U.S. citizens at the main reception."

Osborne pointed out that attending such a party can be part of a strategy for elevating one's social standing. "If Obama or Clinton is elected and comes to London, a host committee will be formed," he said. "Everyone wants to be on that list."

"The private dinner afterwards," he said, "will be the hottest ticket of all."

One possible candidate for such a host committee, the filmmaker Matthew Vaughn, an Obama supporter who is married to the former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, said: "What's fascinating to me is that for years people had lost faith in politics. Now everyone wants to watch the events unfold."

It is not always clear who is after an invitation to a future Downing Street reception and who is just addicted to the latest political drama.

To some observers, the desire to be in the mix, if and when a president who is African-American or female comes to London from Washington, is reminiscent of the years when Vaclav Havel, the former dissident writer, held sway in Prague as president of Czechoslovakia.

"I remember all these trendy Notting Hillers flying off to Czechoslovakia to meet him, just so they could say they had," said Francis Wheen, deputy editor of Private Eye, the satirical British magazine.