Tan Liyang Andrew | u0700107@nus.edu.sg
the ridge & NUSPA
A NUSSU Publication
At this moment, Mr Barack Hussein Obama has been confirmed as the 44th President of the United States of America. The Republican candidate, John McCain, has congratulated and conceded to Obama in a telephone conversation. In being voted into the highest office in the USA, Obama makes history by being the first “black American” to be president.
Photo: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01107/PF-Obama_1107124c.jpg
The term “black American”, along with other permutations such as first “African-American president”, first “minority President” or first “non-white president” were bandied about readily by the thousands of articles covering the election.
It makes me wonder, because Obama was born of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, effectively making him half-white and half-black. Why did the media, and pretty much everyone else, choose to focus on his black heritage? Perhaps the issue of race has not been put to rest completely, despite Obama’s historic win.
Speaking about race issues, the much talked-about Bradley effect failed to materialise in this election. This effect was so named due to the 1982 election where all polls pointed to Tom Bradley, an African-American, winning the post of governor of California by a comfortable margin.
At the actual voting, however, Bradley was beaten by his white opponent. It was theorised that the inaccuracy of the 1982 polls could be due to respondents’ unwillingness to indicate their reluctance to vote for Bradley, but voting for the other contender in the privacy of the voting booth where they wouldn’t be accused by being racist.
The presidential election system in the USA is interesting, because it does not go by popular vote, nor by proportional representation as some European countries do, but by an Electoral College system. States are allocated a certain amount of Electoral College votes; the citizens of the state will vote for their candidate, and the winner of the state’s popular vote takes all the Electoral College vote of the state.
For example, if candidate A gets even 1 more vote than his opponent, then candidate A sweeps all the votes for that state. This is how Bush managed to win the presidency despite narrowly losing the national popular vote in 2004.
In this election, though, Obama won both the Electoral College votes and the popular vote. At the time of this article, Obama won 324 Electoral College votes as compared to McCain’s 124. That’s a remarkable victory, winning twice the number of votes of his opponent. The popular vote, however, shows Obama winning by 51% compared to McCain’s 48%. The other 1% was held by Barr and Nader who ran as independents.
The Electoral College vote count constitutes a decided victory for Obama, while the popular vote shows a lesser contrast between the two candidates. This means that America on the whole is still a divided country. Obama may be one of the presidents with the greatest political power, after the Democrats made gains in the Senate and Congress elections also held on 5 Nov, but recent history should be kept in mind. Just eight years ago, political pundits predicted a Republican era after the Republican Party swept the presidency, senate and congress.
It took just eight years for their advantage to dissipate. Obama campaigned on a message of hope and change; many eyes would be on him, and expectations of him are so high that it is impossible not to disappoint some people.
I must admit to being a little conflicted on Obama’s win. I am happy about his win because I agree with him on most of the issues he championed. More resources to combat climate change, a promise to withdraw US troops from the unpopular Iraq war in 16 months, a refreshing message of hope and change, more engagements with the rest of the world, better international cooperation, and so on.
What I am apprehensive about, however, is the Democratic Party’s protectionist stance. Democrats are generally in favour of passing measures to protect the domestic industry. This may lead to implementation of trade tariffs.
With Obama as president, it is unlikely that the Doha trade talks would continue, while the number of Free-Trade Agreements (FTAs) between USA and other countries would likely drop. This is not a good sign for any countries exporting to the USA, including Singapore, as their exports would be directly impacted by the trade policies of the new administration.
However, the Democratic Party’s position is a guide of, and not a diktat for, Obama’s course of action. He may opt for a less draconian path that does not involve trade tariffs and angering other countries. While America ponders on the future and change that President Obama will bring, the rest of the world is waiting to see how he makes his first move.
It’s given that if you have a black heritage, you’re black, even if it’s 1/32 of your ancestry. That’s how it goes in the States. Though this labelling exists, at least we can confidently say that America is racially blind, politically.
I was not really impressed by Obama because to be honest it seemed that his style is too preachy, dwelling on rhetoric and statemanship, and most of his supporters could be easily mistaken as close to religious fanaticism. His inward/protectionist stance with respect to NAFTA and international trade bodes ill to countries whose major trade partner is the States, such as India whose BPO industry is expected to decline after Obama’s election, in addition to sagging demands already.
Nevertheless, his visionary, hopeful stance is winsome and hopefully he will never run short in dedication and detail while in office, for his challenges are numerous – it’s (almost) a quagmire that he has to overcome, counting virtually insurmountable tasks such as cleaning up the mess in the Iraq, the impending/incumbent economic gloom that looms around and the worsening of it, the fact that there are 40-odd per cent of Americans that did not vote for him, among many other issues the most powerful man in the world must address.