Politics: The Big One: The US Elections.

‘If you try to predict this thing, you're a moron’

– Jim Axelrod, CBS News

At the time of writing, millions of US voters are lining up to cast their votes. Voter turn out is expected to be absolutely huge, with predictions of up to 121 million punters – or 60 percent of eligible voters - taking to the booths. It seems this election will see the highest turnout since 1960, when pro-Civil Rights hornbag John F. Kennedy beat renowned sleazebag Richard Nixon.

Clearly, people are worried about where the US – and hence, unfortunately, the world – is heading. When 60 per cent of Americans brave rain, snow and cold Autumn winds to exercise their democratic right, you know that there must be something important about the election result. And there is: although Kerry’s ideologies are traditionally conservative, if Bush wins it will represent a vote of confidence in a man internationally renowned as an horrific exemplar of everything wrong with cultural imperialism and moralist puritanism. Clearly I don’t need to go into why – Michael Moore and most Sydney University arts student have done that for me.

US presidential races have always had a huge effect on international politics – just ask any Cuban who was around 50 years ago. But it’s rare that international consensus is met and every country agrees that this election could set the tone for world politics for the next four years. Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper had this to say: ‘

Perhaps a national election in another country has never before been followed with so much intensity, participation and partiality. The decision between Bush and Kerry can be defined as the first global election, in which 130 million voters in the USA function as a planetary parliament and elect deputies on our behalf to represent six billion men and women.’

But can the US function adequately as a planetary parliament? A team of international election observers is wary of that, especially after the roguish thievery seen under the Florida sun in 2000. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has sent over its vigilant, United Nations-backed corps to oversee what many are prediction will be an election steeped in controversy and corruption.

It’s hard to imagine the kind of manipulation that goes on in the US, where many partisan punks think it acceptable to deny their countrymen the right to vote... especially if they're black. Most of them are Republicans, but that should surprise no one – if all the black people in America voted, George W. Bush would be beaten so brutally that his blood would stain the white marble of the White House for years to come.

Hopefully we’ll have a clear winner by the time this article goes to print. And hopefully that clear winner isn’t Bush.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

(Photo: John Kerry, who secretly uses non-Heinz ketchup on his french fries and then feels guilty about it later).