Yabby wrote:

Ah CJ, lets really really hope so! But don't forget, they are the
same people who voted for Dubya, so nothing would surprise me lol.
Perhaps they have learnt something, perhaps not, we'll see. I have
learnt not to trust the good judgement of the American voter :)

Dear Yabby,

In 2000 700,000 more Americans voted for Gore than for Dubya. US presidents are not elected by direct popular vote but by electoral districts so a president may be and sometimes is elected with a smaller popular vote than the opposition. Many more Democratic votes were lost by ballot manipulation and disenfranchising probable Democratic voters. The 2000 election was decided by a Republican dominated Supreme Court. If the votes had been counted fairly and the lies of Dubya putting the US in Iraq had been fully exposed the Democrats might have won in 2004.

The same thing has happened in Australia where John Howard has been made prime minister with a smaller popular vote than the Labor candidate because prime ministers are selected by the parliamentarians of his party rather than by the popular vote.

Australia has exported Murdoch who has manipulated the US vote by slanted news media favouring the Republicans. Australia can be partially blamed for Dubya.

I am a dual citizen of the US and Australia and one of the majority of Americans who has voted for the Democrats.

Very droll, Yabby. How about these:

"Palin and McCain are a good pair. She's pro-life and he's clinging to life." –Jay Leno

"John McCain's VP pick is the governor of Alaska, a unknown hockey mom named Sarah Palin that no one ever heard of. The only other job she had in politics was the mayor of a small town known as Wasilla, Alaska, and now she has the opportunity to be on a ticket opposite of Barack Obama, the first black man she's ever seen." –Bill Maher

"By the way, here's good news, ladies and gentlemen: the Palin family crisis that we were talking about on Sunday and Monday, that has been solved now, and, today, the baby is being adopted by Angelina Jolie." --David Letterman

"But we're learning more and more about Sarah Palin, boy, are we. Listen to this: it turns out she and her entire family once had a chair-throwing brawl on 'Jerry Springer.'" --David Letterman

"Some people are saying that McCain picked Sarah Palin to appeal to women who supported Hillary Clinton. This is crazy. You can't just replace Hillary Clinton with another woman. Bill tried that, it didn't work out." --Craig Ferguson

There's more out there every day...

Nice ad hominem with the supposed "elite" media. What does that even mean?

The "liberal media" (any media critical of Palin?) have not sought to portray Palin in any negative way. The simple fact is she is conspicuously under qualified to even be in the executive of the US government, let alone president. How does barely two years spent as the governor of the second or third least populous state in the US, preceded by being the mayor of some backwater town with a population of less than 10 000, even remotely qualify you to run the most powerful government on Earth?

If anything, the selection of someone so conspicuously underqualified only serves to demonstrate what sort of reckless and ill thought out decisions McCain might make if America has the misfortune of electing him president.

CJ, thanks for those. I'd say that if Sarah Palin becomes VP, perhaps
Prez, the best job to have in the US will be as a comedian, for she
will provide them with material for years! Sensible Americans will
have little choice but relief by laughter, as the place goes from
debacle to disaster area. But then they say that people get the polticians
that they deserve, so perhaps old Dubya has not given
them enough pain to learn, as yet.

*Australia can be partially blamed for Dubya.*

Hang on David f, or my first thought was perhaps Mr Foxy :)

I remind you that we don't partly blame America for our election
results, when US tele evangelicals preach to our gullible and take
their money. Rupert is not much different. He knows how to push
emotional buttons and make a fortune. Be that from the page 3 girl
with big breasts, all the way to whatever show makes a quid. Are
so many Americans so gullible, that Rupert can now swing US elections?
Perhaps they are :( They are after all, the most
religious Western nation on earth.

Anyhow, it will be interesting to watch the reactions of the
sisterhood to Sarah Palin's election, should she win. They have
been telling us for years that it is men that are the problem and
we should have more women in Govt. We live in interesting times.

She described soccer moms as pit-bulls with lipstick, not a bad
description of herself really.

.

Dear Yabby,

Everything is connected to everything else. I partly blame the US for the Australian electoral results. When FDR was elected US industrialists formed the American Enterprise Institute. They realised they could not get rid of FDR, but they could work to create a climate where unions would be curbed or eliminated, tax policies would favour corporations, future presidents would be more to their liking etc. Reagan and the Bushes are the results. US money founded the Australian Enterprise Institute to do the same thing in Australia. Howard was the result. His AWAs went too far so he got booted out.

Another example of US influence on the Australian elections is Family First electing Senator Fielding. US evangelical money help fund Hillsong, other megachurches and Family First.

Look up the Enterprise Institutes and "People in Glass Houses" (about Hillsong.)

The US and Australia have been influencing each other elections.

David f, sure there is influence, there is even the butterfly effect,
but that is a bit different to blame. I think that you are
oversimplifying things. All sorts of factors come into play, when
it comes to politics and elections. At the end of the day however,
its up to the voters. Gullible voters get sucked in etc.

Luckily in Australia the religious lobby hardly matter when it
comes to elections. That is not the case in the US and the
marketing campaigners know how to use that fact to their advantage.

Strategists like Carl Rove, who understand these factors, matter
hugely in elections.

I think it was generally accepted that Howard had passed his use
by date. Rudd and Co did actually present a credible alternative,
unlike Latham or Beazely before them.

The way I read it, over the last 20 years or so, the standard of
political debate has actually improved quite a bit, wheras in the
US it seems to be going backwards. We are back to guns, abortions
and other true believer stuff as issues. That is sad really.

IMHO Obama is finally a US politician who is showing some intelligent
judgement. If the average American can't see it and they prefer
to go back to the "fighting God's war in Iraq" kind of politics,
then the US will continue heading downhill, as it is heading right
now. If the last 8 years has not woken them up, then what will?