less than 48 hours, USA will face the most anticipated election in their political history. Not only for the American themselves, but also for the rest of the world (oh really?). But as near as it is to the D-Day, I started to raise a questions about the election itself:

Does it worth our attention?

US Presidential Election 2008 is supposedly not the world’s or Indonesia’s concern. It’s far more useful to keep an eye to Malaysian’s or at least Australian’s election, whom we involve more with. But the answer for some people might be simple: Barack Hussein Obama is just irresitible.

Barack Hussein Obama really is irresistible. I believe no less than 90% of people in Indonesia who follow the US Presidential Election 2008 will back up Obama in their pocket. And it is for various reasons, from he-was-a-kid-who-lived-in-Menteng until his background that likely to be more tolerance about others (this probably toward extremist, minorities or any others wish-so kinda thing).

I personally favor Barack Obama to win the election, because I like the steadiness of his temperament (oh boy, u need this if you wanna run for an election in the US…all those attack-ads) and the judicious quality of his decision-making. Instead of Hillary Clinton, Obama put Joe Biden as a running-mate to cover his lack of foreign policy experience…that’s what I call judicious. That’s what people wanna see from their future president.

But back to the main topic; does it worthy for us to back ANYONE (in this case try Obama) in the US election? The answer is more likely to be NO. And I do realize it long before it comes to this.

It’s true he is black (minority)

It’s true he spent some times in Indonesia.

It is also true that his heritage could be traced all around the globe (Kenya, Indonesia, Hawai, etc).

And he does act like an Average Joe (US term for middle-class citizen)

What’s not true?

It’s not true; he shares same values with the rest of the world

It’s not true; Indonesia may have advantage over his candidacy (no way)

And he is not a messiah or a prophet that will bring all the humankind to the Promised Land.

What am I thinking then? Honestly, I’ll give an illustration…

SandBox

The way I’m looking at US Presidential Election 2008 is like playing in Sandbox. I wanna build a castle right? But I’m bored with an ordinary castle. So I would like to see what happened if I put this in that and put that in this. … by the end of the day, my castle might only be a pile of dirty sands or a majestic castle. And still it doesn’t matter…only made of sands. Experimenting with new stuff and that is exactly what makes Obama special -just like his slogan- The Change We Need. They must be thinking real hard to come up with this slogan…salute to the campaign team. Psychological catchphrase.

US Presidential Election 2008 is not worth for us to be excited about, but we might learn a lesson or two. In the other hand, next year udah Pemilu and I have no slightest idea whatsoever about Indonesian political and leadership figure.Any clue?