The Town Hall Debate format allows citizens to ask the presidential contenders a question. What a great idea! What would your question be?
Here is the first one I thought of:
It has been said that citizens of all countries should vote for the American president because they are often more affected than the citizens of the United States. Certainly the civilian citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan have been more affected than most likely anyone here in this 'town hall'. Are you in favor of letting all world citizens vote for the U.S. president and, if not, what means do citizens of other countries have to protect themselves from the U.S.?
7 comments:
no, because the Chinese government would make everyone vote for Donald Trump. Or if the vote can only take place after the primaries, the world gets to choose between an incumbent president who kills anyone in any country with drones or a dude who wants to invade iran. Enjoy your choices world!
You may have a chance sorta of...Larry King is taking questions via twitter for a debate between, yea, third party candidates
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/uselection/article/1273442--larry-king-agrees-to-moderate-debate-of-third-party-presidential-hopefuls
You raise some interesting questions. As you suggest, how in the world did we get two candidates who started out as contrasts, but now seem less distinguishable and not very inspiring—especially when one started out as the most unusual and promising candidate that perhaps ever ran for the office of president. As you say, he now thinks it proper to kill anyone with drones. (I'm reminded of the Star Trek episode when they got rid of the messiness of war by just killing people by lottery.) He also abandoned many human rights issues, detaining and targeting suspects purely by executive fiat. As noted in the last debate, he also will do nothing about gun control.
Also, as you hint, perhaps the problem is the two party system. More generally, perhaps it is our voting mechanism that inevitably leads to the two party system.
If the guests at NPR's Shanghai correspondent Frank Langfitt's presidential debate party are any indication, Obama would snag the Chinese vote no sweat. Langfitt set up computers and monitors, and streamed Wednesday's town hall debate for a Shanghai audience of eight white-collar professionals, ages 24 to 40.
With all Romney's China bashing, it shouldn't surprise anyone that these guests were supporting Obama. One guest accused Romney -- probably correctly -- of scapegoating China: "Just try to put your own fiscal house in places. Try to look into your own problems." Another guest, an emplyee of a Chinese economics magazine, said Romney seemed to be blaming China for a fact of globalization: low-wage, low-skilled jobs tend to migrate to low-wage countries.
But, mostly, they really enjoyed the debate. They were impressed that ordinary citizens were permitted to ask questions of the the leader of the most powerful country in the world and his rival. It's something they all said they wished they could do in China. Familiarity often obscures distinction.
Watch Party In China For The U.S. Presidential Debate
Pretty insightful. It's nice to be reminded of what we do have.
And those China comments by Romney really steamed me. They were silly in so many ways—as if the U.S. or any country doesn't pursue policies that help its own economy or, as you mention, we want low wage jobs, or that those tech assembly jobs were once in the U.S.
Obama also gets the European vote. Europeans Seen Favoring a Democrat Win in US Election.
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