The morning after
I had a fascinating addition to my list of life experiences this week: watching a US election from a foreign country. I was in Belgium this week for work, launching a new cloud computing project with our Europe, Middle East, and Africa account leaders. There were 30 people in total, from all over Europe plus Lebanon, Dubai, South Africa, Egypt, and Qatar. Quite a mixed crowd. We all went out for dinner on election night, and once the Belgian beers started flowing, the attendees quickly began asking us four Americans leading the meetings what we thought about the election, who we were voting for and who we thought would win.
Does it matter what people from other countries think about our election process? Our President? Our nation as a whole? Chances are good that if you voted Romney, your answer is "no" and if you voted Obama your answer is "yes." If I won the lottery, I would load a plane up with some of the biggest isolationists and anti-interventionists in the GOP and send them on a free vacation around the world with stops in Asia, the middle East, and Europe. The only caveats would be that they were obligated to have some beers with "fer'ners" and listen to a seminar on macroeconomics & the world economy on the flight over. The logic here is that the majority of people who hold those views (with some exceptions) only feel that way out of ignorance.
I'm here to tell you that the representative sample of foreigners we met with in Brussels this week were universally elated that Obama was re-elected. They voiced serious concerns about what Romney may have done. They were worried he would start a few wars, irritate Iran, and/or get into a (losing) economics policy war with China, depending on which ones you asked. Are they right? Would Romney have been a foreign relations nightmare? We'll never know. I certainly think that Obama has a level head when it comes to foreign policy, I like his 4 years of experience, and he has absolutely been more aggressive going after al Qaeda with drone strikes and Special Ops missions than Bush was. Our standing in the world has improved considerably over the last four years, and Obama's foreign policy is a big part of that. This is good for our economy and our national security.
Does it matter what people from other countries think about our election process? Our President? Our nation as a whole? Chances are good that if you voted Romney, your answer is "no" and if you voted Obama your answer is "yes." If I won the lottery, I would load a plane up with some of the biggest isolationists and anti-interventionists in the GOP and send them on a free vacation around the world with stops in Asia, the middle East, and Europe. The only caveats would be that they were obligated to have some beers with "fer'ners" and listen to a seminar on macroeconomics & the world economy on the flight over. The logic here is that the majority of people who hold those views (with some exceptions) only feel that way out of ignorance.
I'm here to tell you that the representative sample of foreigners we met with in Brussels this week were universally elated that Obama was re-elected. They voiced serious concerns about what Romney may have done. They were worried he would start a few wars, irritate Iran, and/or get into a (losing) economics policy war with China, depending on which ones you asked. Are they right? Would Romney have been a foreign relations nightmare? We'll never know. I certainly think that Obama has a level head when it comes to foreign policy, I like his 4 years of experience, and he has absolutely been more aggressive going after al Qaeda with drone strikes and Special Ops missions than Bush was. Our standing in the world has improved considerably over the last four years, and Obama's foreign policy is a big part of that. This is good for our economy and our national security.
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