What's going on with the elections?

Hello everyone!

What’s going on with the elections this week?

I’ve kept reading articles about the elections in the US and in Italy in TimesOnline, FAZ and ElMundo.

I’ve observed that news about American elections are still about the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. There have been incrasingly bitter exchanges between the rival campaings; Obama and Clinton seem to have the conviction that personal attacks raise doubts about the opponent’s electability. On the contrary, now there is the feeling that both sides should keep their mouth shut if they don’t want to lose their prospects of winning the White House in November; the attacks they are making on each other are full of anger and hatred and convey the idea that both candidates are using these strategies because of their harmful positions in the race. Moreover, in all three newspapers I noticed an attack on Hilary Clinton’s credibility; a video shows that what she said about her arrive in Bosnia a few years ago is not true and so provides the evidence of her lies (even if she told later that she had misspoken). I believe Americans are suffering a crisis of confindence in the leadership of both candidates. As a result McCain seems to gain strength and become the favourite.

taken from msnbc

As regards the issues discussed in these weeks, the war still seems to be the leading concern for voters. Nonetheless, as last week there was the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq it was expected that there would be more headlines in newspapers about this issue; on the contrary, it appears that the war was out of the limelight and replaced by the economy. The right-wing candidate above all concentrates their speeches on the war; he is very determined to convince Americans to continue military action.
In addition to the basic points of candidates’ platforms, this week race has been for the first time an explicit issue in candidates’ speeches. Obama’s pastor Rev JeremiahWright had stated that America couldn’t change about racial prejudice and the dissemination of this idea was actually threating Obama’s strategy for dealing with his racial identity, the most important pillar of his campaign. During his last speech Obama strongly tried to convey the message that even if he has a black face, he will be capable of representing the nation in all its diversity and that he might be the only one capable to heal the racial divisions. In fact, it seems that it has long been clear that Obama can be the first black president only if he is not seen as a black candidate; there is actually a general idea that he can’t win the elections if race is a predominant issue.

As far as Italian elections are concerned, in addition to TimesOnline, FAZ and ElMundo I took a look at the online Italian newspaper IlSole24Ore, which seems to be one of the most impartial newspaper in Italy. This week’s headlines are above all about the crisis of Alitalia, the crisis of Buffalo mozzarella because of the continuing rubbish crisis in Naples linked to the local mafia, about the retirement plan and the videos made by PDL and PD. While two weeks ago there was no trace of news about Italian elections in all three foreign newspapers, this week they all have pointed out Italy’ problems about economy, politics and criminality; I feel that foreign countries don’t have high regard of Italy.

taken from interfree

In the latest news of all newspapers there is a general feeling that this is a strange electoral campaign; platforms’ basic points and the two main parties’ goals are actually quite similar (even if in the last few weeks there was a marked difference about the solution of Alitalia’s case). Moreover, this week PD’s video has attracted a lot of criticism. Both Veltroni’s video and Berlusconi’s video are actually quite ridiculous because none of them mirror reality; these two videos misrepresent the opinions Italians and above all joung people have about politics. I think that instead of gaining votes these two videos have actually ruined politicians’credibility.
Taking all these points into consideration, I feel that on 13th and 14th April there might be a lot of abstensions.

Bye bye,
Selena