With a week to go before the big American presidential showdown, two experts from the University of Copenhagen talk to the University Post about what we can expect, and how it matters to us in Europe.<\/p>\n
Russell Duncan and Joe Goddard teach and research American politics. We met them at their Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies to analyse the Mitt Romney-Barack Obama showdown.<\/p>\n
What is interesting about the upcoming US election?<\/em> We have two men, whose fathers were born outside the United States. Romney\u2019s in Mexico and Obama\u2019s in Kenya. They are the ‘other’ in many ways. We\u2019ve got a black man and a Mormon.<\/p>\n So the election is different. In many ways it has to do with the amount of money that was released by the Super-PACS [political action committees that fund candidates, ed.] and also by the demographic changes in the United States. We\u2019ve probably already got a ‘brown [non-white, ed.] majority’ nation , although it doesn\u2019t vote yet, because there are so many kids who haven\u2019t gotten to be 18.<\/p>\n Joe: Certainly it is a special election in that it showcases diversity and not just between Romney and Obama but also the people who ran for the republican nomination. There is tremendous diversity among these candidates and for some reason there is perhaps a movement towards the fruition of American diversity showing itself. It is perhaps an interesting continuation, A few weeks back Romney\u2019s wife talked about Obama\u2019s elections in 2008. She said that now it was possible for an African American to be elected president, a Mormon could be too.<\/p>\n From a global perspective, considering the economic situation right now and the idea of America as a superpower, what would be the effect on the rest of the world?<\/em><\/p>\n Joe: There wouldn\u2019t be a tremendous difference between two of them<\/p>\n Russell: They are both in line with the traditions of US foreign policy. The world is generally happy with who they have, i.e. Barack Obama. I don\u2019t believe that they really want to change that. China is in support of Obama and in Scandinavia; I couldn\u2019t imagine people wanting to vote for anyone but Obama, obviously.<\/p>\n (A snap online poll current on UniversityPost.dk for example has nine out of ten supporting Obama)<\/p>\n
\nRussell: There are particular things about this election which are interesting; many of them hark back to four years ago when Barack Obama used ‘magic’ words like hope and change. These inspired the world and helped give him a Nobel peace prize, even though he is one of the most aggressive war presidents we\u2019ve ever had. <\/p>\nFruition of American diversity at last<\/h2>\n
Outside US: Obama a clear winner<\/h2>\n
The ‘Messiah’ disappoints<\/h2>\n