from floor 7: Election 2008 (from the other side of the pond)

A tame Obama, a tough(er) McCain. McCain went in hard clinch on several issues: Taxes, health insurance and he accused Obama of greater state control. Obama was clearly on the defensive. If you have followed his campaign, you could find yourself replying, as he did not. It may be that the two had different objectives.

Obama to hold the lead, McCain to take it back. McCain must show that he can get a grip on Obama leading by 7 percentage points. McCain succeeded but at the same time, he showed how badly he felt about Obama. It does not usually go home with voters.
Bo Inge Andersson, political commentator, SVT

No shit, Sherlock.
Anthony Memisovski, blogger, Sweden

In September 2006, the people of Sweden decided to turn away from the comfort and safety of a Social Democratic government and decided to fulfill the Eddie Murphy sketch about people getting drunk and voting for Jesse Jackson just for the sheer fun of it - only to find out, to their big shock, that he had won the election.

"Let's vote for Jesse Jackson. [chi-ching] I just voted for Jesse Jackson! --- He fucking won!?"

I'm sure most Swedes must've felt that way when Fredrik Reinfeldt and his right-wing cronies took power and started to drag everything down the dirt. How about that FRA Law, for instance? The law that Google says would fit perfect in countries like China and Saudi Arabia and similar beacons of freedom and democracy? Yummy.

Look at the picture to your left. Some supporters of the Bush/Cheney ticket back in 2000 - but wait a minute. Who's that bald person with the sun glasses in the middle of the picture? That's right - the current Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt. Wanna hear something surprising? Prime Minister Reinfeldt has endorsed Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election. Nope, I'm not making this up. Sweden's right-wing Prime Minister is endorsing Barack Obama.

Bush supporters seeing the light and voting for Barack Obama. But Reinfeldt isn't the only Swedish politican to support Obama, even if the two stand on different ends of the political spectrum. A local Social Democratic politician from my city of Malmö, Luciano Astodillo, has also endorsed Obama and written some positive articles about him on his blog. And a recent survey shows that 83% of MP's in the Swedish Parliament support Obama in the upcoming election.

Where am I going with this? I'm saying that politicians in Sweden are very excited with the Obama campaign and the possibility of him becoming Number 44. What do the people of Sweden think about Obama v McCain? Let me bring up some newspaper polls...

Expressen: Obama - 71% McCain - 29%
Dagens Nyheter: Obama - 80% McCain - 20%
Svenska Dagbladet: Obama - 75% McCain - 25%

Interestingly enough, the biggest newspaper in Sweden - Aftonbladet - aren't putting a poll up. Which shows how professional they seem to be taking the coverage of the election season, when the people aren't allowed to vote. Not.

"Hey, let's not let the people vote in the poll who they want as President. They're gonna have to live with us supporting John McCain and the Maverick Hockey Mom™ Sarah Barracuda Palin in 2008! Let's just put up another article about how drinking milk can give you leprosy - that'll make our sheep flock to our stands!"

I could write about how Swedish corporate media would love to see John McCain turn around his poll deficit and win in three weeks from now, but I would only be repeating myself. The debate, you ask? I was just surprised to see that McCain didn't unfold his October Surprise - entering the stage with Usama bin Laden in one hand and a treasure coffin with 500 trillion dollars in gold coins in the other hand.

(Yeah, I usually think weird thoughts when I wake up in the morning. And that was one of those thoughts. I apologize if I made you say WTF to the computer screen.)

So with the people of Sweden and their elected politicians (yes, there's probably a few of them happy with Reinfeldt and his right-wing politics) watching the election season hitting the home stretch and Obama maintaining a strong lead in the polls - is there reason to remain focused, and stop worrying about if Obama is going to win on November 4?

Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much either. As a (not so) wise man said once: Fool me once, shame on...shame on you...

...

...you fool me, you can't get fooled again!

-anthony040

PS Our next election is in September 2010. Prime Minister Reinfeldt is already jumping onboard the Obama bandwagon (Jesus, did I just say that?!) and is having the website of Moderaterna (his party) redesigned to look like something out of Obama's campaign. If Reinfeldt starts shouting "Yes, we can!" during the 2010 campaign, I'm moving to Japan.