Monday, July 28, 2008

The "After The Next" Blogpower Roundup--The World And The US Election

Colin has asked your friendly fake consultant to prepare the Blogpower Roundup after Chervil's...and since I often write about politics to Americans from a "world view", I'm hoping to enlist the community's help and do a Roundup at the same time.

Here's what I have in mind: how does the world view the US and our upcoming election?

Specifically, I'm looking for the answers to these questions:

--How does opinion lean in your community toward each of the two candidates?

--What is the biggest bone of contention between US policies and public opinion in your community?
How does each candidate appear on this issue where you live?

--What are we doing right?
Which candidate seems more likely to continue those policies--or do them better--from your perspective?

I'm hoping to feature longer quotes with analysis in between--and a bit of "compare and contrast" as well.

The output from this may become a multi-part "mini-series", as some of my recent stories have been; and since I post story output on more or less 15 sites we'll get a good audience around the States.

I'm giving you a bit of notice on this one...I hope to "drop" the story on or about August 25th; so a likely deadline would be sometime on Wednesday the 20th.

I'll follow this up with a reminder in about a week and another ten days or so before the deadline.

I'm taking my last big break before the election from today until the 10th, so I won't be responding to your emails (to fakeconsultant at msn dot com) during that time...so bear with me.

All that said, this should be a chance for everyone to have some fun, tackle a set of big issues in a way most Americans never see...and maybe sway the minds of a few voters come Election Day.

Full Disclosure: My political views will not affect who gets what coverage, and opposing viewpoints are absolutely encouraged.

5 comments:

jmb said...

Er, are you expecting the Canadian point of view from me FC? I'll have to think about that one.

Colin Campbell said...

Is the Monster Raving Loony Party running?

Anonymous said...

"--How does opinion lean in your community toward each of the two candidates?"
I kinda feel like I'm stating the obvious here, but ~90% favour Obama over McCain.

"--What is the biggest bone of contention between US policies and public opinion in your community?"
In four words: TWAT (The War Against Terror). There's lots of other stuff too, but foreign policy is the most prominent one by far.

"--What are we doing right?
Not much, at the moment I'm afraid. You have better local democracy than we do, I believe.

Anonymous said...

I shall transmit the general UK perspective which I am proud to represent ....no one can do it better than I!

fake consultant said...

hi all...it's nice to be back, and here's a few answers:

--let's start with the question from jmb: canadians have a lot at stake as peacekeepers, and many americans forget that canadian forces are very active in afghanistan. you could even write about some of the canadians who have given their lives.

you have health care for all, we don't, and that experience might form a basis for a discussion as well. there is certainly a divergence of views among our candidates on that issue.

--colin: just for fun, check out this bit of americana--and yes, as of just last month, the party remains active.

--to my friend questionthat: to explain to americans what the world is thinking is never to state the obvious.

we are (in)famous for being blindingly ignorant of the larger world...and i can guarantee you that millions of ameicans who can quote every single statistic related to major league baseball are not aware of the 90% statistic you report.

keep in mind that a major issue republicans used against kerry in '04 was that he wanted the world to have a better opinion of us--which republicans successfully sold to the electorate as a bad way to run a foreign policy.

thus the need for this roundup.

--and finally, to mutley...we await, with bated breath, the results of your work.