Voices without Votes continuously aggregates interesting links about the election from world bloggers. Our authors take turns picking their top 3 personal favorites every weekday.

1. Republicans didn’t want the crown

Cuban blogger Tomás Estrada-Palma writes in his self-titled blog that the Republican Party is throwing the towel and has been.

“I know many Cuban exiles are displeased with me for not supporting McCain. But they should be more angry with the Republican Party hacks for throwing Mac under the election bus. I was suspicious when the Republican Party leadership promoted McCain's candidacy after they use to hate him. Then they got him Sarah Palin as a running mate and I became more curious. Does the Republican Party leadership want McCain to lose? It sure seemed odd.”

He further states that the Republican Party doesn’t want the leadership position because of the current state of the nation and further compares the U.S. to Cuba.

“No, the Republican Party elite does not want the presidency next go around. They know how bad the economy really is and how bad things are going to be next year and beyond. They feel it is better for the long term to have Obama in the hot seat, especially since he is not an American citizen and has committed a felony by misrepresenting his place of birth to hide the fact that he is unqualified constitutionally to hold the office of the presidency. I know this to be a fact because rather than just producing a birth certificate to settle the court challenge Obama and the Democrat party have quashed the suit on technicalities. But the case will go forward next year causing a Constitutional crisis along side the economic one we face.

So plan on chaos for next year and beyond with a weak, illegal president. The Republican party leadership thinks they have laid the foundation for the future of the GOP. But the real bosses, the international bankers, know they are right on schedule to divide and finally break up America into smaller, more manageable pieces. Cuban exiles should have been able to recognize these things but evidently they have learned nothing from the Castro experience.”

2. American conservative race V. Canadian conservative race

In another comparison, canworldjon, compares the tactics used in Canada’s Conservative Party presidential campaign versus that of America’s Republican Party.

“The Canadian election is now done, but for many observers, the political strategies of the different parties remain raw in our minds. The Conservative tact of defining Liberal leader Stephane Dion as too “weak” to be a leader, and their attack on his proposed Green Shift plan as a “tax grab” was by all measures successful. So much so, that Dion cited the Conservative misinformation campaign as a key reason for his decision to resign as Liberal leader.

I want to focus, in particular, on Conservative Leader Stephen Harper’s attacks on Dion’s Green Shift proposal– a policy, put in (overly) simple terms, to shift tax burdens onto polluting behavior. Harper, however, redefined the Green Shift policy via “scare tactics” focusing on Dion’s supposed latent socialism. The Green Shift was not an environmental policy, declared Harper, but a “hidden agenda” to tax everything in the country. In fact, Harper consistently stumped that the Green Shift was a secret socialist-style redistribution program.”

He then throws in the U.S. comparisons:

“Interestingly, here in the United States, the McCain-Palin campaign for the 2008 presidency have recently settled on a line of attack ominously similar to Harper’s. After toying with several different “scare” attacks over the last few weeks — including VP candidate Sarah Palin’s base assertion that Senator Obama has a history of “palling around with terrorists” — McCain and Palin have likewise focused on Obama’s supposed hidden socialism. Seizing on remarks Obama made to a voter now known as “Joe the Plumber”, that Obama, with is tax plan, wished to “spread the wealth around”, the GOP have declared Obama a closet socialist wanting to impose wealth “redistribution” on America.”

Canworldjon then writes that the same tactics are having different outcomes because of the American perception on the idealogy of socialism.

“Commonsense tells us that in Canada, a country with a greater affinity for socialized programs like universal healthcare, such scare tactics alluding to secretive socialist agendas would be less effective; conversely, such attacks should more effective in the United States, with its staunchly anti-socialist historical tendency. Ironically, however, the Republican attacks (unlike Harper’s election win) have been largely ineffective: the Obama-Biden campaign is widening its lead over the Republican ticket.

Is this one of those great inexplicable electoral ironies? Or perhaps evidence that certain communications strategies are ineffectual, given broader social, political or economic currents (such has concern among Americans that the Republican party has mismanaged the country’s finances)?”

3. According to the pundits…

The third fave is by Malaysian blogger Khoo Kay Peng, who writes about the American political pundits and their analysis of the election.

“Frank J. Fahrenkopf, Jr. who is the president and CEO of the American Gaming Association and co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, predicts Obama's overwhelming victory. Yes, this is the commission which organises the presidential and vice-presidential debates. He has conducted 22 of them ever since. Another prominent personality, Governor James Blanchard (pic) who is a former chairman of the Democratic Governors Association and a decorated diplomat predicted a big win for Obama too.

According to Governor Blanchard, economy is the biggest single issue in this election. Not national security. Not Iraq. National security is a key strength of McCain. Average Americans are worried about jobs, lay-offs and keeping their homes. Hence, most of them are looking for who can best manage their economy.

Clearly, the financial meltdown in Wall Street is not favouring McCain. Naturally, most Americans are blaming Bush for lack of urgency to arrest the problem when Lehman Brothers went under.”

However, Peng adds that “Obamania” can still end.

“Obamania is really sweeping US like a wild fire. Can he be stopped? According to the speakers, yes. If there is an incident which threatens national security it may force American voters to rethink their choice. Apparently, the terrorists would prefer a hawkish president such as Bush to help keep them in business.

Can Obama make it? Or will McCain pip him from behind? Stay tuned!”

What are your thoughts on these three faves? Did the Republican Party give up before the race began? Is socialism really bad? And, does McCain still have a chance?