November 26, 2008
The Obama campaign pioneered the use of 21st century social networking in American electoral politics. Its My.BarackObama.com website was a small miracle of technology and tact, building a platform that at once spread information, enlarged the supporter base, directed energy and, most importantly, ...
go to article »November 20, 2008
Following in our footsteps, a New York Times editorial today forcefully argues for the abolition of the electoral college in favour of the popular vote. There are numerous reasons to dispense with the creaking, archaic system: much of the initial rationale of the system lay in slavery; it is uncons...
go to article »November 18, 2008
The New Yorker's recent issue boasts a particularly arresting cover (pasted below). Obama's "O" moon waxes high over the Lincoln Memorial, casting a pale reflection in the pool beneath. Still months before his inauguration, Obama finds himself in the longest of shadows, that of th...
go to article »November 16, 2008
Elsewhere in openDemocracy, Anita Inder Singh explores the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which poses one of the toughest foreign policy challenges facing the next president. Singh paints a bleak picture: "The Taliban now control at least one-third of the country; President Karzai'...
go to article »October 31, 2008
Heading into the last weekend before the election, here's a handy tool to keep all the polls and predictions in perspective. The Takeaway condenses the spectrum of political projections in this "prediction tracker" below. ...
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...or rather, "I am Joe." The ad below also boasts a cameo by the McCain campaign's new puppet of the Protestant work ethic, "Tito the Builder". ...
go to article »October 29, 2008
Ahead of a 30-minute "infomercial" to be aired across most US TV networks tonight, Obama spoke rousingly in Ohio yesterday. Billed as his "final argument", the speech mixed the older, loftier rhetoric of the primary season with the more measured and earthly tone of recent months...
go to article »October 28, 2008
At least one person in Europe isn't going all soft and misty-eyed for Obama. The irascible Melanie Phillips recently penned a fevered attack against the presidential hopeful, warning that Obama "will take an axe to America's defences at the very time when they need to be built up."...
go to article »October 24, 2008
Unsurprisingly, the New York Times has endorsed Obama over McCain. The pillar of American print media remains the bete noire of a particularly virulent segment of conservatives, convinced that the broadsheet is at the centre of a "liberal, elitist" national media. During the Republican co...
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It seems Islamist insurgents do read openDemocracy's SWISH reports. Just as Paul Rogers urged, a poster on an al-Qaeda-linked website has suggested that a John McCain presidency would better serve the purposes of the jihadist movement than an Obama one. Revelling in the financial crisis grippin...
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more »Voices Without Votes is a Global Voices project commissioned by Reuters. Original content 
