One day still to go, yet it seems both candidates for the US presidential seat at the White House have already won, lost, won again, and lost again countless times. There is little doubt in the fact that every media organisation in the world wants to be the one to present the latest numbers starting from the earliest figures as well as opinions in the form of predictions, regarding the names Romney and Obama.
In a recently published article, Dawn Newspaper reported, “America is a country obsessed with trying to see into the future. And there is no greater industry at the moment than trying to predict, through opinion polls, whether Democrat President Barack Hussein Obama will retain his job or whether he will be ousted by his Republican challenger Willard Mitt Romney. For an outsider — and one suspects for most Americans — the sheer number and diversity of polls, administered by a slew of competing media organisations and private think tanks, is bewildering. It doesn’t help that some of them seem to directly contradict each other.”
Are people forgetting the real significance of the face that comes along with the names, numbers, and opinions? Or is it not important to anyone what the face sees and hears, how it reacts to certain incidents or questions, how it responds through body language and reflexes, and what emotions it displays?
Television and the internet being the fastest of mediums nowadays for disseminating huge chunks of information for people to absorb in a variety of formats, it seems that the face that will decide the future of the world at least in the form of foreign policies for the next four years has gone astray amongst the circus of clamour, characters, confetti and crowd.
Has the media lost the plot? Or are they doing the right job by keeping people informed and well equipped with the correct set of ‘tools’ required by every man, woman and child to not only elect the next US president but also for non-voters to decide future stances?
In another article, Dawn Newspaper reported, “As the long and hugely expensive campaign builds to its climax, the rest of the world needs to thank the American people and system for the entertainment they provide us every four years. After spending around a billion dollars each, both parties are stretching every sinew in the home stretch. Even though Obama has continued to maintain a small lead in the polls, the tiny percentage that separates the two candidates remains statistically insignificant. Apart from the excitement of watching a closely run race, the result matters to the whole world in a way no other election does.”
Does the outcome (which includes the possibility of a tie) really matter to the whole world so much? If so, how will it be different if Obama still retains control of his seat?
