We're happy. I couldn't find one person today who favoured Mitt Romney. Not of any age or persuasion and I was asking the question - Who do you think will win? Face book comments sum it up really:
"Obama won the election huh? cool. He seemed nicer than Romney. No idea about his policies or even what he has done in this term but he's pretty likeable."
Even if people didn't follow his politics they knew who he was and that he was accessible. Australia seemed to care very much about this election. Probably because we have taken to President Obama. He has meant something to so many people here and their age has not been relevant. He is a people person. We are used to American presidents we cannot identify with and whom we cannot relate to and Mitt Romney seems to have been in that category. He is not an American who is recognisable outside of his country. One Australian of Asian background couldn't work out why we were so focussed on the American election. His belief was no one cares about any other country and its elections so why America? Australians have always taken an interest in the elections of other nations with whom we have long term ties. These days I 'd go so far as to say we are far more geo politically aware and take an interest in government changes all over the world. We have been watching the American election for a long time but couldn't quite get into it . This week it was different. It meant something. Barack Obama is a president for the 21st century. He is global. He relates globally and other nations can respond to him. With such a hard fought race the Americans have given him something to think about in much the same way we will give our political leaders something to think about when we vote. He inherited so much. He turned the image of America around and that was a tough agenda item at the time. It has been taken a bit for granted. He has brought in some reforms we think are good, especially the health care reform. We like his wife Michelle because she cares about health and wellbeing and she gets out there to be a part of the national and global community. We relate to her...and their children and the dog. At the moment, it is what America needs so they have voted him back in with a headache. He will have to think out what happened. He's up for it. He has earned the second run and will hopefully have a chance to be able to show more of who he is and less of fixing what was broken and damaged. So, there are a lot of people in Adelaide going ....woo hooo! Bit unusual , really.
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