AAA Part 5 - US Presidential Elections

If you are confused about the current US Presidential elections and scratching your head, I don't blame you. I will try and give you a crude explanation.

There are predominantly 2 parties - the Democrats and the Republicans. For the Presidential elections, usually a (former)member of the Senate/House of Representatives(equivalent of the Parliament) or a former Governor (or someone with some credibility), announces his/her intention to run for the President's post. Then, each of the 50 states vote who they want to represent their party for the Presidential race(you have to register as a Democrat or a Republican and vote for them; you can't pick your choice in both parties). Depending on who wins each state, they are allotted some number of delegates to a convention at the end of the voting in all the states. Then, the winner at that convention - the one who has the most number of delegates, is that party's choice for the Presidential election and squares off against contender from the other party to become President. Then, voters in each state vote to an electoral college - each state has a number of electors - whose total number determines who becomes President.

An example. Let's say, Hillary, Obama, Edwards, McCain, Huckabee and Romney announced their intentions to run for President. The first three are Democrats, the rest Republicans. Elections have taken place in many states till date, and candidates Edwards and Romney have dropped out because they did not feel they would end up with enough delegates to win the Presidential nomination. When you 'win' a state, you get some number of delegates, now Hillary and Obama have similar number of delegates and it is too close to 'predict' who will win their party's nomination. On the other hand, McCain has a sizeable lead, but Huckabee is not giving up because he is a very very conservative candidate who has the backing of the hard-core Christians(yes, believe it or not there are 'true' Christians in USA today).

The down side of this type of election is that these candidates have to raise a lot of money to campaign - Romney has supposedly spent $40 million to give a shot at becoming President - but now it's no point - so it is a bit hurting to know that candidates spend so much money which is ultimately of no use. This money is raised by the candidates mainly through donations and rarely personal finances(as Romney did).

Similarly, when two candidates are pitted against each other, like Hillary and Obama are, the danger is that the enemity will split the party, the voters and work to the advantage of another candidate, in this case the Republicans. That danger is living out today as the two are pulling every trick to criticise each other.

As for the Vice President, the nominee for President can select anyone he/she wishes - as his 'running mate'. It is usually another person who was also in the race.

The issues in this 2008 elections are Iraq, Iran, the economy, healthcare and immigration.

And that is the Presidential elections in a nutshell.