Is it Important that People in Other Countries Follow the U.S. Presidential Election of 2008?

It is to be hoped that every member of the global community follows the 2008 US presidential race with intense interest. The United States is a model of democracy, an example to the world of how a free country elects its leaders. The campaigns of the three front-runners this year are especially interesting.

For the first time, a person of colour is running for the office of leader of the free world. The election of Barack Obama, should it occur, would send a powerful signal around the globe that segregation will never again be a viable issue in America. Mr. Obama, running on a platform of change, would have defeated an array of the best white politicians that America had to offer. He could stand proudly, surrounded by black Americans, a crowd stretching from east to west, from Canada to Mexico, proclaiming that never again would people of color be regarded as second-class citizens in the United States of America. Never again would they be forced to sit at the back of buses or attend segregated schools. Should he be victorious, Barack Obama would embody the achievement of the dream of Martin Luther King: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Another contender in the race for the presidency in 2008 is Hillary Rodham Clinton. She is the first woman to seek the office of chief executive, although Geraldine Ferraro ran for Vice-president in Walter Mondale's unsuccessful presidential bid in 1984. Women attained universal suffrage in the United States in 1920. It has taken eighty-eight years for a female to achieve the respect and confidence of enough voters to have a feasible chance of becoming the presidential nominee of one of the recognized parties. Mrs. Clinton is clever, tough and an excellent orator. Unfortunately, her husband, ex-president Bill Clinton has not been an asset to her campaign. Too many voters remember him as a womanizer and a perjurer, the president who was impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998. His presence again in the White House, even in the supporting role as husband to the president, may be too repugnant for some voters to stomach.