Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporting, and popular culture features from across the political spectrum. ...
As anyone who regularly visits the Moderate Voice or WORLDMEETS.US knows by now, the world’s attention is riveted on the U.S. election campaign. And in every nation, different lessons - some of them cautionary - are being drawn. Writing for Brazil’s Estadao, Lourdes Sola explains why American election campaigns - particularly this one - create so much emotion in the ‘other three corners of the world’ and how the way Americans choose their leaders proves the resiliency and health of U.S. democracy. Sola then outlines the lessons that people in other nations, particularly Brazilians, should glean from the U.S. presidential race. Examining how the candidates, Obama and McCain, were selected, Sola writes: “American democracy shows the enormous capacity of institutions to absorb and filter change in society without resulting challenges to the law. The dispute in the Democratic Party between ‘a woman’ and ‘a Black,’ leads to an institutional question: Why and by what mechanisms were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama chosen as the most competitive electoral candidates? The same question can be posed about the nomination of John McCain since it also reflects a shift in the value system of the Republican Party on immigration, the environment and secularism. Taken together, this is a “change in season” in the sphere of politics and reflects a profound transformation in that society’s system of values and criteria for political legitimacy.” O ...
Anytime
As anyone who regularly visits the Moderate Voice or WORLDMEETS.US knows by now, the world’s attention is riveted on the U.S. election campaign. And in every nation, different lessons - some of them cautionary - are being drawn. Writing for Brazil’s Estadao, Lourdes Sola explains why American election campaigns - particularly this one - create so much emotion in the ‘other three corners of the world’ and how the way Americans choose their leaders proves the resiliency and health of U.S. democracy. Sola then outlines the lessons that people in other nations, particularly Brazilians, should glean from the U.S. presidential race. Examining how the candidates, Obama and McCain, were selected, Sola writes: “American democracy shows the enormous capacity of institutions to absorb and filter change in society without resulting challenges to the law. The dispute in the Democratic Party between ‘a woman’ and ‘a Black,’ leads to an institutional question: Why and by what mechanisms were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama chosen as the most competitive electoral candidates? The same question can be posed about the nomination of John McCain since it also reflects a shift in the value system of the Republican Party on immigration, the environment and secularism. Taken together, this is a “change in season” in the sphere of politics and reflects a profound transformation in that society’s system of values and criteria for political legitimacy.” O ...