Wrap up...

As the election draws near, it is gaining more and more attention from the international media. This week has been a good week for news-- but it is funny how different the BBC is from other news sources in America. The issues this week are....
1. The traditional October surprise...
Dr Rupp and Pete talked about this on the first day of Freshmen seminar. The BBC asks, though, will it matter with all the early voting? Will another Osama video come out, using fear as a persuasive means to gaining votes for the Republican party? It is hard to imagine one man being responsible for literally THOUSANDS of deaths, and we can't find him... We have computer programs that know the kind of music that we like based on genres and beats per minute-- but we can't find ONE guy?? This isn't how they frame it-- but they do say bluntly that this is the reason Bush won in 2004. Does it match up with everything I know? Yep.

2. Early voting
The BBC reports that early voting is helping Democrats. The key for McCain to win is for democrats not to get out and vote... Voting in states like North Carolina, a key battleground state has early voting up nearly 400%. The articles says, "In the past, Republicans have tended to benefit from early voting.

"This is like a mirror image of what we've seen in the past," said Paul Gronke, of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College. "This cannot be good news for John McCain."

Overall, early voting is running about twice as high this year as in 2004 in many states."

It's more than gaining the support of the people. It is about getting the support, and then energizing them in a manner that will make them go out and vote... and Obama is doing that well..

3. McCain the underdog!

McCain is behind... We all know it, but on Meet the Press, McCains says he's not worried... The BBC did a great job at just talking about the situation. McCain claims that the polls aren't accurate... and the BBC doesn't rip him to shreads because of it... and that is probably because it is true. Really, since we do not use cell phones to do polls, they are missing an important segment of the American picture... I know people like my aunt are hoping they are wrong... But, we'll see....

4. Palin's ethics...

While the media in the US can't get over how great Tina Fey does as Sarah Palin, the British are focusing on how... no, wait, wait...

In their "Election in a nutshell" segment, they mention how the Ethics report found Palin to be unethical... What articles did they write though? Tina Fey has to glue her ears down to do a better Palin... I can see the brainstorming session for this week's news stories in case there aren't any tragedies... World hunger? nahhh.... Inpropriaties of an elected officials-- eh, we'll mention it... Tina Fey glues her ears... OMG< FRONT PAGE...

yet, suprisingly enough... that is what people are talking about...

5. McCain isn't playing fair...

That's what Obama is claiming... and again, this is what America is talking about... Last week, in seminar, we talked about Robo-Calling... The BBC doesn't go into great detail about this... I actually didn't realize that this was what this artilce was about until I read it... They took a much less biased view of this topic, using Obama's words and accusations, how ever accurate, to write the story. Again, the BBC seems to want to stay out of this partisanship, while reporting the facts.

Overall, the BBC did a pretty good job this week... I am anxious to see what happens next week-- The last time we'll see election news for four years, as long as there is no Y2K fiasco...