My fellow bloggers: like a lot of you, I’m disappointed that Kerry lost. FWIW here are some quick thoughts from a non-US citizen:
– I watched the coverage on CNN and BBC yesterday (yes we get both tv networks in New Zealand). CNN seemed to be very cautious about predicting results… a bit like Kerry’s campaign? One piece of coverage that resonated with me was from the BBC, after it was clear Bush had won: an analyst said that Kerry’s campaign showed a lack of strategy and imagination. Which was evidenced by people who voted Kerry really voting against Bush, not for Kerry. The analyst went on to say that “you can’t back into the presidency” (or something like that) – a “mistake-free campaign” isn’t enough to win the presidency off an incumbent during a time of war. An interesting line of thought, which I will try and read up on…
– On CNN I watched Barack Obama being interviewed just after he won his race for Senator. Watching him, I thought: wow, this guy should be the next President. I’ve seen him before and read up on him a little (back when Howard Dean was the bee’s knees in the blogosphere), but this only reinforced my initial impressions from back then that Barack Obama has the intelligence, passion and clarity of vision to make a great president. I guess we’ll see how he grows into his job as Senator, but for now I am very impressed.
– It’s amazing how many of the bloggers I read are Kerry supporters (or simply anti-Bush, as the case may be). I’d say up to 95% – but it could just be that the Democrat supporters in the blog world were just far more vocal than the Bush supporters. But in a way this reinforces that the blogosphere is an echo chamber, at least among the liberal-minded and international spread of bloggers that I tend to read.
– Why do tv networks continue to run fluffy stories about “the innernet” (aka the internet)? One of the NZ tv networks ran a story from one of the 3 big US networks – ABC, NBC, or CBS – about how “the innernet” influenced the 2004 election. And what did the story focus on? Web cartoons and Eminem’s mosh video. That’s all the Internet is good for, apparently. After the piece, the TVNZ anchor quipped “Love that Internet!” and then segued into the weather. Hmmm.
– I found a website this morning called Globalvote 2004, “where non-americans get to vote”. I only discovered this website today via an American blogger who pointed to my hometown newspaper which ran a story about globalvote 2004! Anyway – unsurprisingly, non-americans were overwhelmingly Kerry supporters. Kerry got 77% of the globalvote and Bush got 9%. Bush did win the Iraq vote though(!)
– Other noteworthy international views, from my neck of the blog woods: Mathemagenic (who points to a great post by Alex Halavais); Paolo.
OK, that’s my political ranting out of the way. Back to the business of web technology…
