A World That Donates As One

Barack’s visit to Europe again makes clear how important it is to people over here who exactly is the POTUS. A lot of people in Europe are interested and invested in American politics and for good reason if you see the effect the American’s actions can have on the rest of the world.

Polls show that Europeans overwhelmingly support Barack Obama and would like to see him in office as opposed to McCain. This makes it extra annoying that our power to influence the process is severely limited. American elections are in a large part dominated by money and the raising of it. Unfortunately non-Americans are excluded from making donations. Something about foreigners not being allowed to elect the American President.

This is of course stupid. The people electing the president are still the Americans. Seeing as campaign financing has been regarded as a form of free speech, don’t people from outside the USA have the right to speak their minds on this matter? I’m sure that if Trichet would look under the sofa in his office, he could find a spare €50’000’0001 —per the wishes of the European electorate— to give Obama’s campaign that extra push.

  1. Giving $50M would be even easier if you see the current exchange rates. []

2 thoughts on “A World That Donates As One”

  1. Short sighted and stupid article. Somewhat symbolic of the simplistic portrayal of American politics and the American elections in Dutch media. Tax cuts: Obama is for tax cuts but not for the rich. Protectionism: America already is one of the countries with the most protected internal markets in the world.

    No of course Obama won’t change everything but I would be a lot more willing to put up with America’s actions around the world if they were guided by moral leadership instead of stupidity and corruption.

    And if he completely botches it up, we already have some experience shunning Americans and talking trash about their president. We can just go on doing so.

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