Stage Politics

America had made history again with Obama winning a second term for the Presidential Office. The social media has exploded all over the world with people celebrating this historical success. Of course not everyone is happy. Donald Trump was especially upset about the win. From his tweets it seems that he will be a grumpy old man for another 4 years in his silver tower. He thought he has the eye of Sauron but he was wrong again.

The presidential race in America always attracts international attention. In Australia, news was all about the election in the last few days and sometimes I wonder whether I need to go to vote too. However, what I am interested in is more about how the “election show” was staged.

What I noticed during the whole campaign is that while Obama embraced cultural diversity Mitt Romney went the opposite way. It is no question that Mitt Romney, as a Republican candidate has to live up to the Republican’s expectations. However, at the same time, in my opinion, there are certain opinions that should be reserved to a few drinks in his house after an upper class belly fattening dinner. I found it even funnier when he once use Donald Trump’s “quotes” on birth certificate as a tag / gag line for his speech. When I read that I thought, “Oh come on you could have come up with something more original than using a quote from a guy who wears a toupee and enjoy firing people on TV”. I wonder what were his writers thinking? I am sure Mitt did not write all his speeches and that’s fair enough for he needs to reserve his arm for waving not writing. So the scriptwriters for his stage should have been more careful when there is a whole gang of them doing the job.  Even if Mitt Romney is not a good actor, with great writers, he could still turn a mediocre performance into a memorable act.  However, at times the team failed him and left him cold on stage and wet with press.

On the other hand, Obama was reaching out to embrace modern America. It was said that Obama did not only get the African Americans vote, but he was popular among Latinos and Asians, who are some of the larges racial groups in America. Even in his victory speech, Obama reached out to everyone in America disregard race, politics and sexual orientation. This is a President who attempted to not only represent the Democrats, nor just his ethnic group but also everyone in the house. Of course, not everyone would take the bait but at least he made the gesture, and I think that is very important. Without a doubt, Obama is a great performer and speaker. When he walks on the stage, he commands it. Of course even the best actor would have bad days. The first round debate with Romney was one of them. But then it was a Wednesday night so from a theatre point of view, performances are usually a bit flat.

What I saw in the last week or so of frantic campaigning by the two leading figures is there are still people who represent extreme conservative views in the modern world. Republicans believe in the glory of the country no matter what, even at the expense of others. Politics is a dirty game we all know that but for me a party who only sees the glory of being glorified and stays in the time capsule of the past cannot really lead anyone into the future, no matter what they said. They are like green actors trying to perform classic texts without understanding them so they just took the face value they believed in and made a show of it. In my opinion, a true leader is someone who sees an opportunity that could realise his vision and go for it. These people own the political stage because their performances were tied in with their choices and they believe in their choices. Obama is one of them. There were criticisms about the economy in the States but I always found it interesting that the Republicans forgot who brought the States into the current financial turbulence because of over deregulation among peers. Obama inherited a country in economic tatters and it was a tough gig. So I am glad that he got four more years to fix the country. The pity is that he might spend most of the time fixing instead of building. Nonetheless, I have the confidence that he would materialise his vision as much as possible.

As for Australia, I believe we are still going through a phase that nobody can be the star so we got B grade actors filling in. Our major party leaders still have a lot to learn from the real politicians in the States. The Liberals are not liberal in thinking and that was completely reflected in Tony Abott’s behaviours and speeches. Sometimes I think they should rename their party to Narrows. And as for the Labor, they are simply laborious to watch and listen to. Seriously Julia Gillard needs to fix her sinus problem or get some good voice training. Maybe she should take some corporate performance classes from the NIDA open program. I am sure Lynne Williams would love to give her a discount so she could put Julia’s picture in the foyer as an honourable patron.

The election fever would eventually die down in the next few days. It will be another four years before we watch this whole show again. In the mean time, I just hope that the Australian election would be more tolerable to watch. But then who am I to complain? At least we have freedom and democracy. Otherwise this post would not even exist.