Today Ole Moen, a specialist on American politics and an often used expert by the national broadcasting company NRK in Norway. Was speaking about the 2008 US presidential election on a conference in Tromsoe, Norway, arranged by the Atlantic Council in Norway.
He shared his point of view with the auditorium full of eager listeners from all levels of society. He talked about the historical strongholds of the two parties, and showed a divided country in shape of clear patterns on the united states map. The traditional strongholds for the democratic party is the west coast and the north east, as well as the northern part of the midwest. The southern and central parts of USA have for a long time been republican-land. He also spoke of the primary election, where Barack Obama won the race against Hillary Clinton after he went after the states that are republican strongholds. He won the major parts of the electorials from these states, and coupled with the super-electorials who jumped the band wagon after Obama came up on the side of Hillary ensured the win for Mr. Barack Obama.
He came with interesting anecdotes as well, like the meeting he had with Franklin D. Roosevelts grandson the very morning he gave his speech in Tromsoe. The grandson had said that he felt FDR and Obama were very much a like when it came to social politics. FDR were as we all know the president during the depression in united states, and he came up with countermessures to help aid the economy.
For the political future that lay ahead for Obama, Ole Moen was a bit vague, he suggested that Obama would try to get as much money as possible from the congress in a crisisplan, in the region of $60 milliards. Moen then said that Obama probably would get an easier ride as a president with the majority of the congress and senate behind him.
As to wich candidates Moen saw fit as being part of Obamas ministery he suggested John Kerry as the new secretary of state and Hillary Clinton as either the new United States attorney general or as a new member of the Supreme Court.
Ole Moen rounded off his speech with some questions from the auditorium, and came with some critic of the machines used during elections with the company owners having ties to the Bush family and lack of effort to fix the errors on the machines.
All in all it was a good and informational speech from professor Ole Moen on many aspects of American politics along with culture.
By Even Hill
