Ibrahim Hussein is a Jordanian with Palestinian roots who lives in Dubai in United Arab Emirates.

In his Bottom Line on the U.S. election, he questions its fairness:

We in the Middle East can’t vote, and the majority do not believe that the election is clean, seriously we all are set in thinking the US Elections is rigged, just like 2000. We do not believe that it is fair, especially that there is no equal coverage to other parties other than Democratic party and the Republican part. Most of us do not give a crap and most of us think it is just BS. But I am sure that most of people in the middle east, Arabs, Asians, Europeans, South American, Muslim and Christians will watch.

After struggling with cynicism, he finally looks for hope and change without supporting either candidate:

Some have watched the American elections since last year as if they are watching a reality TV show, a bit longer than American Idol I guess, and some watched it seriously following each and every article written about it. Some believe that it effects all of the world and some believe it will only affect Americans. I believe the whole world have hated the past 8 years, they hated Bush’s foreign policy and domestic policy, in the end all will watch and will wait to know who is the next president for USA hoping change come to Washington and we start seeing some difference in the way things work. Some might laugh and call it naivete, and some will call it hope.   Ibrahamo’s Weblog

Closer to home, William Bowe is one of Australia’s leading psephologists. With five days to go he’s called it:

I expect Obama to win the previously red states of Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada and Florida, leaving him well clear of the “magic 270″ with 338 electoral votes. He is also in contention in Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina, although most pundits rate McCain the favourite here.I'm going out on a limb to predict (without confidence) that the well-oiled Democratic mobilisation campaign will bring these states home as well, pushing Obama up to 375 against 163 for McCain.  Pollbludger predicts: Obama 375, McCain 163

Big call for a West Australian but I’ll back his judgement. This quote is from Crikey’s online website. William also blogs for them as Poll Bludger.  His live blogging will be very popular here next week. Let’s hope we get  a faster result than 2000.

My third favourite is not really a blog, though the video link can be found at mine, Labor View from Bayside. The BBC’s Dan Collyns reports from Peru that Barack Obama has the support of most of the local shamen:

As the US presidential election nears, the shamans of Peru have been displaying their own methods for ensuring the success of their chosen candidate. Peru's shamen send US election vibes

From Bangladesh, Mash has a headline which screams: Sarah Palin: Elitist Fraud. He explains:

Sarah Palin spends about as much on clothes in a couple of months as Joe The Plumber makes in four years. The Republican National Committee has spent $150,000 on Sarah Palin and her family’s clothes since she was selected as the vice presidential nominee in late August.

Some of Sarah the Hockey Mom’s notable shopping sprees:

• $49,4425.74 at Saks Fifth Avenue
• $75,062.63 at Neiman Marcus

I am going to take a wild guess here. I am going to guess that the simple folks and hockey moms she claims to represent probably do not shop at Saks or Neiman Marcus. This woman is a joke and a fraud.

Canadian Chuckman's Cartoon Comments posts this cartoon which says: “A girl's gotta have somethin' decent to wear!!”

From England for Obama, Andrea Mann asks readers to compare and contrast between Palin and Barack Obama, when it comes to clothing and shopping sprees.

Sarah Palin’s $150,000 a month on clothes (and accessories - don’t forget Piper’s Louis Vuitton handbag, now!), with the Obamas’ fashion habits, discussed below in July:

Hmm, now, remind me: who’s the regular mom? Who’s the elitist? And which team is it that understands ordinary Americans?

Egyptian Zeinobia is annoyed that Palin's special needs son, Trig, is being paraded in the media in “not so nice clothes.” She writes:

By the way why his mom did not buy him nicer clothes than those clothes he appears in the photos with all those thousands she spending, it is not a bad thing to look nice in the political arena , she looks better than Hilary’s suits.

Jordanian Hani Obaid says Palin brought the attention to herself.

Every morning before work, I read the headlines on Google News. I was surprised this morning that the top headline was related to Sarah Palin’s wardrobe! It seems the RNC (Republican National Committee) spent $150,000 to spruce her up, and this is angering some supporters. The press found out from financial disclosure reports.

Don’t get me wrong. I wear tracksuits or shorts depending on the fashion in Milan that week (not really), but people who spends this kinda money on clothes are asking for attention.

Along the same line, Rodrigo Morais, a Brazilian who lives in Abu Dhabi, UAE, says in a post entitled Let's go shopping, darling! that the latest shopping bill shouldn't have come as a surprise, considering Palin's bad habits as the Governor of Alaska.

Já tinha vindo a público que a senhora, quando ainda era Governadora do Alaska, gastou outra pequena fortuna de fundos públicos para levar os filhotes a passear cada vez que ía a um evento fora do seu estado. Evento para o qual os pirralhos nunca eram convidados… Agora chega isto, 23 mil contos (o preço de algumas casas) de dinheiro investido por doadores (lobbying e alguma malta que sente mesmo a coisa) gastos em roupas e acessórios para pôr baton na porca e no resto da família… Well, guess what, you can put lipstick on pig, but it's still a pig.

A Brazilian living in the US Leila Couceiro, in the post “Buy, Baby, Buy”, points out that Palin only likes the most expensive shops - Neiman Marcus, Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue, where she spent more than her annual salary as Governor of Alaska. She details the items and prices on the bill and concludes:

Ou seja, enquanto ela faz sua propaganda política baseada em sua suposta austeridade fiscal, o que se vê cada vez mais é uma pessoa se aproveitando financeiramente de seu cargo público.

Meanwhile, Dutchman Michael van der Galien comes to Palin's support, saying:

It is always fascinating to see biased news organizations accidentally reveal why they ran a specific article: it’s yet another attack. They will now try to present Palin as someone who is out of touch with American voters, who spends big on clothes and make-up: in other words, one of those elite women who care deeply about looking good and nothing else.

* Portuguese translations kindly provided by Paula Goes.

Personal, character attacks began during the weekend, when Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” She was referring to Obama’s alleged association with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the Weather Underground — not to be confused with the uber-chic '60s band the Velvet Underground. The Weather Underground, also known as the Weathermen were a left-wing terror group implicated in a series of bombings across the United States between 1970 and 1974, namely, the New York City police house, a toilet in the U.S. Senate Building, a woman’s restroom in the Pentagon, a San Francisco police station, a Marin County Courthouse and the Presidio Army base in San Francisco.

According to the Alaskan governor, both Obama and Ayers often attended the same social functions and once sat on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty group. They also live within a few blocks of each other on Chicago’s north side. The Washington Post blog Fact Checker found that Ayers, who is now a distinguished professor of Education at the University of Illinois-Chicago, contributed $200 to Obama’s re-election fund to the Illinois State Senate in 2001. Ayers never served a prison sentence for his role in the Weathermen, but admitted in a memoir he didn’t regret setting the bombs.

The whole thing adds up to the Fact Checker calling the link between the two “tenuous.”

Next, it was Obama’s turn to rekindle some of John McCain’s past. Bloomberg reports that the Obama campaign has constructed a new website with videos reminding voters how McCain is a member of the Keating Five, a group of Senators accused of improperly intervening with federal regulators on behalf of their financial backer, Charles Keating, the owner of a failed Savings and Loan. When Keating’s Saving and Loan went belly up, more than 23,000 bondholders were drafauded and the U.S. government stepped in, becoming liable for $2 billion in loses. (Fact Checker hasn’t gotten around to these claims, but according to the Arizona Republic, McCain's help to Keating was in “poor judgment.”)

“I think it is safe to say this presidential campaign has thus far been cleaner than the last two, with only one truly nasty attack ad,” writes dubaiwalla, from Dubai, in his Livejournal page.

Look for that to change over the next month, as John McCain attempts to roll the dice one last time by questioning Barack Obama's character in a bid to cut into his comfortable lead. And if he does, expect to hear a lot more about his own past, and that of his running mate. My personal prediction is that the polls will close a bit, as McCain spends all the cash he has hoarded. But with the combination of a lead in cash, good poll numbers in every swing state (plus some traditionally Republican ones), and a strong ground presence, I am very optimistic about Obama's chances. The economic crisis should amount to a coffin nail.

From the Public Opinion weblog at the Thought Factory, run out of Australia, McCain’s fade in the opinion polls leave his camp with only one tactic left: personal attacks.

The Guardian reports that the economic crisis has led to a haemorrhaging of Republican support over the last two weeks. Polls and reports from Democratic and Republican campaign staff on the ground suggest that a seismic shift is taking place in the electoral map in favour of the Democrats. Obama is making inroads into states once regarded as safe Republican areas, while the number of states in which McCain is competitive is narrowing, mainly because of the Wall Street collapse.

I'm not so sure that it is that cut and dried. McCain can still win narrowly–like Bush did…So what then for McCain? A turn in tactics? To negative adverts? A smear campaign? To shift the campaign discussion away from substantive issues, such as the economy or health care? McCain needs to try and divert attention from the economy.

As Bloomberg points out that the character attacks — as they are now called — puts the Obama camp, and its message of hope, in a predicament. How can you try to preach change and be vindictive at the same time?

From a writer called CLARENCEGIRL, blogging in North Country Voices in Australia:

Both the Republicans and Democrats are naturally trying to control media spin in the 2008 US presidential election.

Cease and desist letters are flying back and forth between candidates and lobby groups (such as the National Rifle Association), as well as between media outlets and the Obama and McCain campaign machines.Legal action is apparently being regularly threatened over a broad area.

After a failed attempt to allegedly buy internet censorship, Obama has relied on a number of websites in his attempt to control this spin.
His Fight the Smears site asks for help in spreading the ‘truth' about political rumours and falsehoods.

However, his supporters appear to be going a little overboard and are apparently attempting to censor what goes up on the Internet.

However, bloggers around the world are calling into question using attack campaigning at all. From a liberal perspective, but one with political experience, Duncan Riley from Australia argues that both John McCain and Sarah Palin deserved to win their debates: They spoke more in key points, used their grand narrative well, articulated the negatives of the other candidate and lectured on their fighting spirit while their opponents conversed less in sound bites and more often took a positive approach. “Everything I’ve learnt from years in politics,” Duncan confesses, “told me that McCain won the debate.”

I was wrong. Every poll showed that Obama won. It was a triumph of substance over style, of a positive message trumping a more negative one.

If we can, let’s get beyond the partisanship of the post and focus on the nuts and bolts of the argument. Why could Obama grow his lead after these head-to-head encounters? By becoming more aggressive and resorting to more personal attacks, are the Republicans fighting the previous war?

The electorate is changing.

At a time of economic crisis, and with wars on several fronts, the American people are looking past the politics of old, the politics of negative spin and sound bites, and want something more. It can be the only explanation for Obama and Biden winning both debates among swinging/ undecided voters in particular. Intelligence and a deep understanding of the issues are less of a crime in 2008.

There’s also the defeat of narrative + negativity over positives and intellect. Notice how McCain in the first debate referred to his experience in Vietnam, and how Palin said that only McCain knows how to fight and win. Being in a POW camp deserves respect, but it doesn’t give you a special ability to run the free world over your opponent. Notice Palin’s constant references to Alaska, and hockey moms, and her disabled child, having 5 children, running a small community etc etc…great narrative that may connect on some levels, but it’s no longer a vote winner over what you are capable of delivering and what your policies are.
Change starts from the ground up. If the polls continue, and Obama wins in a landslide (or something close to it), the people of the United States will join others in Australia and the United Kingdom in finally rejecting the negative politics that became the defining factor of all three in the late 90s and into the first decade of the 21st century. We’ll only know in November.

In somewhat of the same vein, Jeremiah Haber, from Jerusalem, who writes the Magnes Zionist blog takes New York Times columnist http://voiceswithoutvotes.org/2008/09/28/it-frightens-me/ A comment on the American presidential election if I may. Because, of course, all of us are affected by the actions of the president of the good ol' US of A.