Osama Mubarack

Super Tuesday has come and gone but you still can't avoid the footage and stories about the US Democrat race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and this should calm down a bit today when it's effectively decided who gets the nomination. I'm not really bothered who gets it - they're both in support of the same things and both are candidates that will appeal to specific demographics.

Their last Democrat competitor, John Edwards, pulled out of the presidential election last Wednesday and I watched his departure speech. I hadn't seen him before but if you imagine a stereotypical American lawyer then John's your man. He also had an unusual accent. His speech was mostly political rhetoric but what he did say was that he hoped to remove poverty from the USA and both Clinton and Obama had pledged to make this one of their main policies.

I think he suffered because he was competing with "celebrity" candidates but was essentially the same as them politically. He didn't have the money or the fame to generate as much support, and although he beat Clinton by a fraction of a percent in the Iowa caucuses he got hammered everywhere else.

Obama obviously is aiming for the younger vote as well as the "black" vote as they distastefully call it. Apparently he's done quite well in the southern states which has surprised many people, but has not managed to win as many young voters as originally expected. I find the concept of black people voting for the black candidate because of skin colour pretty shallow and futhermore I believe Obama is part of a religion that has anti-white undertones which might cost him in the end.

I've seen Clinton a couple of times on TV over the last few days and she just looks old and nasty, like a witch. Everything she said was boring rhetoric. Obviously she will get a chunk of people voting for her just because she's female which I believe is pretty pathetic. She'll pick up more voters because some will believe it's like voting for Bill again (when it's not). I personally can't stand her patronising speeches. She seems to be ahead of Obama slightly in the current Super Tuesday results.

America is a weird place. You have the big prosperous cities that everyone knows. In the south you have poverty and deep rooted racism. It's quite a contrast: as if parts of the great US of A are living centuries in the past both technologically and culturally.

It seems, though, that the politicians are finally pledging to do something about it assuming they have the courage to back up their rhetoric. As I have mentioned already, Edwards got Obama and Clinton to pledge support to his campaign to remove poverty from America. A pretty honourable campaign but sad that it does indeed exist.

In the British media there has been very little mention of the Republican candidates because of the domination of the celebrity Democrat candidates. I'd heard of someone called McLean but that was all. John McCain is his name and today he's announced himself as the frontrunner, ahead of both Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee by quite a distance.

I heard a speech from Mitt Romney yesterday and I thought it was very good. He accepted there was a serious problem with their economy: more serious than they realise. He pledged a return to the times of Ronald Reagan whilst putting McCain down as too liberal. As soon as he mentioned controlling illegal immigration the crowd went wild. There were religious undertones in some of the stuff he said and the fact that he is a Mormon effectively rules him out. I can't be bothered with people that want to ram their religion down your throat. I don't think anyone wants another bible basher like George W Bush in control of American's nuclear arsenal anyway.

Names are important: I don't think anyone with the name Mitt can become President. The only Republican with a remotely powerful name is John McCain but his problem is he's so old and his speeches are honest but weak. He drones on and never gets animated, I guess because he reads word-for-word from a script. He seems like a relatively normal guy though and isn't spewing out religious clap-trap. There is an air of Iain Duncan Smith about him: perhaps because both are ex-military and have axes to grind regarding that. IDS was hopeless and I think McCain would be. The Yanks seem to like him but unfortunately for him anyone can see that he has no chance whatsoever when it comes to the crunch against Obama or Clinton. Mind you, Hillary is a bit of a rubbish name as well.

America probably needs a Labour (Democrat) based President now that it's economy is fucked, but that means taxes will go up. The Republicans (Bush) tend to do stupid things like reduce taxes on wealthy people which makes no sense in the crisis that the Yanks' economy is in. People are already complaining about their lives becoming more expensive - they only need to look at the UK for an example of Labour's Robin Hood taxation - taxing anyone with a job to pay for the lifestyle of those that don't.

Out of Clinton, Obama and McCain I don't really know who I'd go for. McCain would naturally be my choice if I were going based on alignment, as he's the furthest right. However like many have said he's liberal on a lot of issues and he has voted in agreement with the Democrats on a lot of issues. I don't like Clinton just because she seems like an old witch.

I guess that leaves Osama. The one thing he has going for him is that he is young and you'd think he would be more in touch with current generations. There are many issues which I don't really think any of the others would ever have been exposed to and ever be able to form an opinion that isn't based on a viewpoint of a biased, corporation-funded "advisor", such as issues of modern technology, intellectual property, copyright law and so on. However I suppose it's not a perfect world and most Governments are run by big business now. Freedom, choice and creativity are things of the past - the only thing of relevance these days is money.

An example of this is that you have to be a very rich American to run for President. How is this remotely fair or balanced? Apparently Mitt Romney has sunk $40 million of his own money into the Presidential campaign he has no chance of winning. Obama is apparently making $1 million per day from donations to his campaign. It's big bucks. The whole concept of representation in Government is flawed in almost all so-called democracies around the world and everything seems to revolve around money and money alone.

These Yanks that are voting frantically now think they have a say in how their country moves forward and develops over the coming years. But do they?