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The US elections are proving absolutely fascinating after Hillary Clinton won the latest primary, and there are some top-class BBC journalists doing an excellent job reporting this interesting process to us Brits.

Jon Snow, former ITN Washington correspondent (My review of his autobiography here), has charged over there the last week or so, and has presented some fascinating conversations with ‘ordinary voters’. I doubt Sarah Smith isn’t too put out by his arrival on her patch, they seem to be complimenting each other well.

James Naughtie, from Radio 4’s Today programme is presenting some absolutely fascinating, and dare I say for a foreigner extremely insightful, analysis pieces during his excellent coverage for Today.

I don’t think I’m as puzzled by what the Americans are doing as some people in the media seem to profess outsiders to be. It seems largely a simple process. What I don’t understand (and maybe somebody can help me out here), is how Americans can be comfortable being registered as a Republican or Democrat? The ’state’ knowing your general political preference seems marginally ominous to me. I still get rather unnerved by the fact that (if I recall correctly) ballot papers in this country have serial numbers, and your ballot paper number is noted next to your name when it’s given to you when you vote. Of course, it’s largely to prevent fraud, and never used in reverse, but it could be with enough time, and that worries me a bit, at least in my more paranoid moments.

But the idea that, say, “Liberal Democrat” (as the party I associate myself with, but, I should state, I am not a member of) would be associated with me in some public record enabling me to vote in Liberal Democrat leadership elections (stop sniggering the back there)…. Now that’d worry me, and that’s comparably how I think it works in the US.

The other thing that’s struck me is, once more based on the reporting I’ve been watching over here, how different the views of the electorate, and media, appear to be regarding John McCain (age 71) and Menzies Campbell (age 66). Campbell experience some utterly shocking and deplorable press coverage regarding his age, and that ultimately led to falling opinion polls and then his resignation. McCain is older still and not (from the coverage I’ve seen) suffering any ill affect. It reflects extremely poorly on Britain’s public attitudes to age, and extremely well of America’s.

The reporting hasn’t led me to many conclusions about who I’d like to see win. Certainly a Democrat, but whether Obama or Clinton I don’t know. I think they’d both do well for America, and for the relationship Britain (and the rest of the world) has with it. Both talk of ‘change’, but I’m simply not familiar with the subtleties of that, perhaps other than the international element. Both would of course be historic, either as the first Black President, or the first female President. Or even vice-president, perhaps? Clinton strikes me as the more accomplished, but Obama the fresh-face that may be what America needs. A difficult decision, certainly, but America is so much the better for having such an excellent choice available to it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008 at 10:13 am and is filed under BBC, Media, Politics, Radio, TV, The world, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.