The US Election

Well, we've just survived the US election. With the saturation of newspaper, radio, television, and billboards over the past 3 weeks, it's been unavoidable. The initial result is in, and from this summary, it appears Bush is going to win by a larger majority than in 2000. It looks like Bush has won the popular vote and the electoral college vote (whereas in 2000 he lost the popular vote contest but still won).

But elections are a strange thing over here, yesterday the Kerry camp was quoted as saying that they had USD 71 million dollars, and 10,000 lawyers ready to contest the result in court if they didn't win. The Bush camp wasn't much better, saying that they had a war chest of USD 11 million to battle the result in court if required. The Bush camp called Kerry "dellusional" for not conceding defeat already, and Kerry's running mate Edwards was quoted as saying that they'll contest every single vote in court if necessary.

What else is interesting is that Bush is reported to have a personal fortune in the realm of USD 40 million, whereas Kerry is reported to be worth USD 1 billion. So much for throwing away the notion of the rulers only coming from the rich class in society.

Either way, this election has left the USA a divided country. The far east and west coasts voted Kerry, with just about everyone else voting Bush. Reading blogs this morning I've found lots of bitterness and disbelief and refusal to accept what has happened, along with sighs of relief from the other side. Exit polls showed the biggest issue on American minds were moral issues - whether same sex marriages should be recognised, and whether human embryoes can be harvested for stem-cell research. The economy and Iraq were the next 2 biggest issues.

I'll be really glad when the result is confirmed, the legal challenges are gone, because right now it appears everyone in the USA is putting their life on hold until it's all resolved. The mood at work today is sombre.

| 04 Nov 2004 | #