{"id":669,"date":"2010-05-12T01:28:48","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T23:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=669"},"modified":"2015-04-27T22:04:29","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T20:04:29","slug":"the-obama-effect-not-quite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/the-obama-effect-not-quite\/","title":{"rendered":"The Obama effect? Not quite"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been said that the American media don’t often cover<\/span> politics in other countries. That’s not much of an exaggeration<\/span>. Medium-sized newspapers often have only one page of international stories, on page 4 or page 6 at best<\/span>. TV news focuses on those countries with an immediate and obvious relation to the US \u2014 NATO partners, China, Afghanistan, and so on.<\/p>\n

It’s not the fault of Americans. It’s like this in any large country. Russia and China are good examples. There’s simply enough going on inside one’s own borders.<\/p>\n

To every rule there’s an exception, though. One international story that did earn some attention in the US media \u2014 however briefly \u2014 was last week’s election in Britain<\/b>. CNN showed, live, the first-ever debates between the candidates for prime minister.<\/p>\n

A special relationship<\/h2>\n

Britain and America don’t really have many shared traditions, apart from what we eat at breakfast. But we do have a special relationship. We’re close friends because of the language we share, the Brits’ gratitude<\/span> for our support in World War II, their preference of a transatlantic alliance<\/span> over a pan-European one, and the fact that the US can depend on them to tag along<\/span> whenever it goes on some foreign-policy adventure.<\/p>\n

Recently, Britain recalled our friendship by running what they called “an American-style election campaign”. The BBC excitedly reported that the candidates had Facebook pages<\/b> (just like Obama!) and challenged each other in proper debates<\/b> (just like Obama and that other guy!).<\/p>\n

Conservative leader David Cameron (now the new prime minister<\/a>) worked the words “hope<\/b>” and “change<\/b>” into several of his debate answers. Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg (on whose support Cameron now depends) one-upped<\/span> him by offering “the change we need<\/b>” (another Obama phrase).<\/p>\n

Whom are they kidding?<\/span> Neither of these guys is the next Obama. Nor could they be, given<\/span> only four weeks to prepare. Four weeks into his own campaign, Barack Obama was a total outsider. Mobilizing volunteers, motivating voters and drumming up<\/span> support on social networks took him the better part<\/span> of two years.<\/p>\n

Two’s company, three’s a crowd<\/h2>\n

No, it was two other things that made the debates (potentially) interesting to Americans. First, Britain and America each have a two-party system<\/b> \u2014 not officially, but in practice. The odds are stacked heavily against<\/span> any third party mounting<\/span> a significant campaign. They are stacked by the two established parties in particular, and by the voting system in general.<\/p>\n

We saw this in the result: Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats got almost as many votes as Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, but only one-fifth as many seats<\/a> in parliament. In the US, a third-party presidential candidate usually gets no seats at all in Congress. Any local third-party candidates are massively outspent<\/span> by their established competitors.<\/p>\n

When a third party does get momentum<\/span>, as Ross Perot’s Reform Party<\/b> did in the US in 1992, and as the Liberal Democrats<\/b> did in Britain last week, it really shakes things up. The usual definitions of Left and Right go out the window<\/span>, and the voters are asked: Do you care about ideology, or do you care about solving the country’s problems?<\/p>\n

The second striking thing was the uncanny<\/span> role of television. The US had its first televised debate in 1960, between Vice-President Richard Nixon<\/b> and Senator John F. Kennedy<\/b>. Those listening to Nixon on the radio felt he had a better grasp<\/span> of the issues. His voice of experience contrasted with Kennedy’s horrible Massachusetts accent. But those watching the debate on television (video here<\/a>) saw Nixon’s dour<\/span>, sweating face and preferred the young Kennedy, who stayed cool and confident throughout.<\/p>\n

So it was in 2010, with Prime Minister Brown in the role of Nixon, his multiple chins<\/span> sagging and wagging<\/span> every which way<\/span>, his calm, reassuring voice unheeded<\/span> as he faced not one, but two Kennedys calling for change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been said that the American media don’t often cover politics in other countries. That’s not much of an exaggeration. Medium-sized newspapers often have only one page of international stories, on page 4 or page 6 at best. TV news focuses on those countries with an immediate and obvious relation to the US \u2014 NATO partners, China, Afghanistan, and so … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[228,36,215,29,142],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1707,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions\/1707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}