Monday, September 15, 2008

Reason 54

UPDATE: below

To vote Republican: not aping Euorpe, as Gerard Baker explains in the September 12th Times (London):
This election is a struggle between the followers of American exceptionalism and the supporters of global universalism. Democrats are more eager than ever to align the US with the rest of the Western world, especially Europe. This is true not just in terms of a commitment to multilateral diplomacy that would restore the United Nations to its rightful place as arbiter of international justice. It is also reflected in the type of place they'd like America to be - a country with higher taxes, more business regulation, a much larger welfare safety net and universal health insurance. The Republicans, who still believe America should follow the beat of its own drum, are pretty much against all of that.
Which is why I'm an "R".

And Soeren Kern surveys European reaction to Sarah Palin on American Thinker:

European commentary on Sarah Palin has ranged from ridicule, to ridicule, to more ridicule, to reluctant acknowledgment that Barack Obama may have met his match. In any case, many European elites are sensing that the Democratic presidential candidate, by failing to pick US Senator Hillary Clinton as his running mate, may have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

A common theme running through much of European commentary is that Palin lacks qualifications; it is a critique European elites could, but will not, apply to Obama, presumably because he is a Democrat, and thus ideologically acceptable to Europe's enlightened class. Many Europeans lament that Palin is (according to Europeans) pushing the US presidential election into a battle of values rather than of policies, as if there is any real substance to Obama.

But if there is one single aspect to Sarah Palin that threatens the smug certitude of Europe's secular gatekeepers, it is her Christian faith. It therefore comes as no big surprise that Europe's media elites have directed the bulk of their fury at American evangelical Christian voters. As if European secularism is not also a religion.

Agreed.

MORE:

Obama's base:


source: Michael Asher

2 comments:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

He wouldn't win the Eastern European countries anyway.

Great map.

@nooil4pacifists said...

AVI:

Great point--and three cheers for Estonia, Poland and The Czech Republic: America's best allies on the continent.