Confirmed!!! Back Obama wins the 44th USA presidential elections!
Now that this is done and dusted, can we all change the world for the better, please?
Obama winning…
At 7:20 today, based on CNN estimates, Barack Obama has 174 electoral votes and John McCain 69. The first one to reach 270 electoral votes wins.
Signs show that Florida (the infamous Florida from 4 years ago!) might vote for Barack Obama (27 electoral votes). Of course, California (with its 55 electoral votes) has always voted for Democrats. So it seems that Obama will make history in becoming the first non-white American president and this will cause major disruptions in the whole world!
For fun, I fooled around with the CNN online electoral map to come up with this dreadful situation:
In this worse case situation, Barack Obama still wins! He wins Washington, Oregon and California on the West coast, Hawaii and none whatsoever of the “inside” states and he gets 271 electoral votes: 1 more than the number required to become President of the United States of America.
Alé Barack Obama! Or should I say: “Félicitations Barack Obama!”
[An update: I’ve created a I want a Mauritian Barack Obama on Facebook. Feel free to join.]
Mauritian Obama?
Americans want Barack Obama to become their 44th President. If he is elected, America will teach to the whole world what being progressive really means. It’s pathetic that in 2008, we, Mauritians, can only think of electing a Hindu Vaish as Prime Minister (except for Bérenger’s brief spell…) But, to put things in perspective, even France is not yet ready for a black or arab President.
Of course, no one can be 100% sure that Obama will be President as the election is done by an electoral college. To paraphrase this succinct and precise article:
It’s the Electoral College that matters in presidential elections.
It’s a collection of electors chosen by the Democratic and Republican parties in each state who then choose the president; 538 electors are spread across the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Each state and the District of Columbia gets a minimum of three. Larger states are given more, based on their total number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. You can calculate each state’s electoral votes by adding two (the number of senators) to a state’s number of House members. California, the most populous state, has 55 electoral votes. Wyoming, the least populous, has three (along with six other states and the District of Columbia).
But
The newly elected House would vote for president on Jan. 6, with each state’s delegation getting one vote. Because Democrats are likely to maintain their majority, the House likely would elect Sen. Barack Obama. The Senate would vote to elect the vice president, likely Sen. Joe Biden.
Whether Obama wins or not, I would like to see a change in the way we, Mauritians, think of politicians. We tend to forget that politicians are elected by us to implement whatever they announced in their electoral programmes. They should be held accountable. If they are not performing, they should get a proper kick in the backside.
But, first and foremost, they should not be chosen because they “represent” a specific ethnic group but because of their competence, vision and, for the old ones, their track record. Young people should be given a chance to do things instead of being only crutches.
Any early signs of Mauritian Obamas yet?