The Big Tent is ordinarily a parking lot, but now has an enormous two-story tent erected on it. The panel I spoke on was upstairs from the bloggers. The panels are back to back. Mine was organized by the Better World Campaign of the UN Foundation, and was primarily about a new poll they have published that says Americans care about foreign policy. The fact that this would be news, is sort of astonishing to me. But there is some scientific method to help establish the fact that this has changed in the past year. I always wonder whether people just respond according to what they happened to see on the news the night before.

I spoke about the work my colleagues Amira, John, Jillian and many others from Global Voices are doing on Voices without Votes, a website sponsored by Reuters where we are tracking non-American responses to the US presidential election and foreign policy. I personally, think Americans tend to focus too much on what foreign policy means for themselves (and how people perceive them), and not enough on what it means for citizens in other countries. The questions I got during the panel reinforced my sense of this.

Let me paraphrase: Do non-American bloggers say that America doesn't accomplish it's foreign policy goals? What do bloggers in the Middle East say about American women?

In other words, what does the rest of the world think about America. Well, I don't know. I think most of the time they too, are thinking more about themselves, and interpreting world events according to what makes sense in their own hemispheres and blogospheres. Please visit Voices without Votes to see the many, many different things bloggers around the world are saying. Unlike pollsters, we don't pretend to speak on behalf of entire populations or the world - but we do hope to give a taste of what foreign opinion and reasoning looks like.

I never thought I'd have anything in common with Daddy Yankee, who recently endorsed Republican presidential candidate John McCain. And no, I'm not talking about being Puerto Rican, I'm talking about being stereotyped.

Post extendido - Leer más 'Media, the DNC, and the Latino Vote : The Criminal, Macho Latino Male and the Hot Blooded Latin Sterotype Mujer'...

The first hot topic of the evening was former Vice President and Nobel prize winner Al Gore's speech. Much of the conversation surrounded the odd choice of “Let the Sunshine In” as Gore's entrance and exit music. From Trinidad, georgiap quipped:

Brazilian danielduende was also amused by the choice:

Kenyan afromusing, live-tweeting the DNC, says:

Canadian doshdosh remarks upon Obama's campaign strategies during the DNC:

As the clock nears 10:00 EST, Danish-Puerto Rican solanasaurus sends word from the DNC:

Just prior to Obama's entrance, Trinidadian nplaughlin queries:

Driving the message home that the U.S. election has truly become global, Taiwanese tweeter leonardchien remarks:

Via / Awearness Blog

In other liberal-leaning blogs like VivirLatino, the overall marks of Hillary Clinton’s speech were terrific. For the most part, bloggers pointed out that the first woman to seriously contend for the President of the United States was wholehearted in her plea for party unity at the Pepsi Center during the second full night of the Democrat Convention in Denver, Colorado.

“I think she did what she had to in terms of uniting the party,” argues Darryl Wolk from Canada, who in the same breath follows with: “I still think she would have been the strongest choice for VP.”

This is the conundrum facing presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama. As a political upstart who defeated the heavily funded and experienced political machine of Hillary Clinton, how will he keep control over the sometimes unwieldy Democratic party, whose complete support he needs to defeat Republican John McCain in November.

In what could be the biggest question of Election 2008, will Clinton’s supporters heed her call and support Obama in November? Inquiring bloggers want to know.

Let’s go to a story from Jotman in Thailand.

I had assumed Hillary supporters would “get over it,” but in the back of my mind was an incident in which I had been a participant.



While residing in the US, I became a member of a spontaneously assembled community group engaged in some emergency social activism. The stakes seemed high, our time limited. We assembled. Our group absolutely had to nominate two “speakers” to represent us at an upcoming town hall meeting.



One of the three people standing for nomination declared that “as a matter of principle,” one of our two representatives “must be a woman.” This woman had a large number of female supporters. The other two candidates — both male — vehemently disagreed. Gender absolutely should not be a criteria, they argued. To make a long story short, our activist group elected two representatives to attend the town hall — neither one was female.



The reason I bring up this story was what followed. Not only did the candidate who was not nominated quit our community activist group, but so did many of the women who had voted for her. That so many of our members had simply chosen quit the community group over the outcome of this one vote had surprised me.



Today, I can't help but wonder if a similar psychology is at play among Hillary Democrats.

In a somewhat similar vein, Israel’s Ms. Missive at Patriot Missive declares Clinton's speech didn’t heal divisions within the Democratic party:

Well, the way I see it is Hillary still has a vagina and Barack still has a penis. So, how is it a shock that Hillary loyalists still aren’t voting for Barack?

Perhaps not every Barack- and Hillary-ologist were viewing Clinton’s speech through the lens of gender (or sexual organs), but many political were deconstructing her words more closely than a group of literature grad students scrutinizing the latest David Foster Wallace tome.

Bluegrass Boabab, a South African with a wonderful nom de plume who now lives in the U.S. and writes theIn the Shadow of the Baobab blog claims that Hillary Clinton delivered her finest speech ever, a performance of her lifetime. However, the address was “about Hilary Clinton and her piece of women’s rights history she carved herself because of how close she got to be the nominee…as a woman, and rightly so too.”

Continuing:

Sometimes it sounded as if Obama was mostly treated like a tag on to her, but in a very nice and diplomatic and supportive fashion, so well that it got the people to their feet every time. She did what she had to do and said what she had to say in support of Obama. She said Michelle will be a good first lady, but never said why she thinks Obama would be a good president. A true endorser usually does. I am sure many thought that that was suppose to be her job tonight. Unite the party behind Obama. I don’t think the speech did though.

…I felt it was not an “Arrivederci Roma” speech. It was a “I’ll be back!” speech! A question of when? Maybe if Obama loses she could run again in 2012.

SnoopyTheGoon at Simply Jews points out that Clinton may have uttered the words “Obama is my candidate,” but:

She didn't specify what exactly it is she plans for him.

Just below, Dick Stanely comments that perhaps: “She's getting ready for next time, when she can run against McCain for his second term.”

There’s no mistaking that some continue to hold onto the idea that Obama-Clinton would represent a Democrat “dream ticket.” We can’t forget, however, the success the Obama campaign had in portraying Clinton as an old fashioned, tired Democrat. Here’s something in that vein from Richard Silverstein over at Tikun-Olam, writing after Joe Biden was introduced as Obama’s running mate. “One of the things I’ve admired about Obama’s campaign thus far has been his willingness to make daring moves, to do the unexpected,” he says early in his argument against the Biden choice. “It allowed him to break out of the mold. It set him apart from Hillary Clinton, the candidate who seemingly tried to do everything the same old, boring, old-fashioned way.”

The question remains what assets Hillary (or husband Bill) Clinton will bring to the Democratic party in the upcoming months. It’s a similar question that could be asked of a certain royal bloodline in the Republican Party. From Labor View From Bayside, based in Australia:

Is George W. Bush or the Clintons the greater anchor to be dragging into November? The next couple of months will be stormy for both of them, with or without the mixed metaphors.

Via / Google Video

A majority of Hispanic students — about 75 percent — live in what the study calls "established" Hispanic states: Texas, Colorado, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

In Texas, more than 40 percent of enrollments from 1990 to 2006 were Latino students.

Almost 20 percent of the nation's Hispanic students — nearly 2 million — live in Texas.

Via / Chron.com

“New American Consensus on International Cooperation”
Location: Big Tent:DIGG Stage
Time: 3:00 PM - 3:50 PM (MST)
Scheduled to Appear:

- Geoff Garin, President, Peter D. Hart Research Associates
- Steve Clemons, Senior Fellow and Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
- Rep. Bill Delahunt (invited)
- Solana Larsen, Global Voices Online

Geoff Garin will present findings from the Better World Campaign’s 2008 polling and Steve Clemons will lead the panel in a discussion of the findings and the role of foreign policy in the campaign. The UN Foundation's blog, UN Dispatch is also featuring daily posts and tweets from the convention.