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 €50'000'000 1 —per the wishes of the European electorate— to give Obama’s campaign that extra push.
Giving $50M would be even easier if you see the current exchange rates. ↩︎
