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Updated Thursday, November 27, 2008 10:33 am TWN, By David Ting, Special for the China Post

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Obama shows ‘audacity of hope’

Watching America’s election-year politics, it is hard not to draw a comparison with what has happened in Taiwan in our own election in March. Taiwan voters, like their American counterparts, punished their incumbent president Chen Shui-bian for his eight-year misrule and handed Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang a landslide victory. Ma, a mainlander, won the presidency largely on support from native-born Taiwanese who account for 85 percent of the island’s population, much the same as Obama won the election on support from the white majority. Ethnic and racial barriers fell in both countries. What a milestone!

But that’s where similarities ended. While Obama cautioned his countrymen against hopes for a quick fix of America’s economic woes, Ma promised an “instant improvement” in the nation’s slumping economy which has been many years in the making. Ma’s broken promise has drawn massive protests from disillusioned voters. Unlike Obama who is winning accolades for recruiting the right men for the right job, Ma has been roundly criticized for having done the opposite. As a result, his approval ratings have been on a free fall since inauguration in May. Our president may have to learn from Obama, his fellow Harvard law school alumnus, 12 years his junior.

It is possible that after Jan. 20, Obamamania will subside when the gargantuan work of rebuilding America’s flat-lining economy at home and tainted international image abroad begins. Yes, he inherits a crisis, financial and political, of historic proportions. At home, the banking industry is in danger of meltdown, and the auto industry, which Obama calls the backbone of America’s manufacturing, is teetering on the brink. Millions of homeowners are facing foreclosures. Abroad, the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers US$10 billion every month. Iran and North Korea are posing threats to world peace with their nuclear programs.

Despite the daunting challenges, Obama appears confident and cool-headed. His sure-footedness, resourcefulness and charisma and captivating smile are reassuring to the American people who have lost hopes and direction for so many nightmarish years. Now they are beginning to see hope, through the strength of the emerging team assembled by Obama for his administration.

He is losing no time getting ready to hit the ground and running. In the run-up to Jan. 20, every minute counts, as the struggling Big Three auto makers may not be able to wait that long to get a US$25 billion bridge loan they are seeking to save their neck. Obama promised last week that he won’t let the auto industry “vanish” but he said the Big Three must present a coordinated plan to show how to turn themselves around. But, George Bush is still president. The Democratic Congress could try again to reconsider their request when they go begging to Washington again next month.

Obama has indicated that his administration will work out plans for America’s economic recovery, with an undisclosed amount of money, thought to be around half a trillion dollars, to “jump start” the economy, through infrastructural investment —rebuilding and repairing roads, bridges, schools, parks — that would create some 2.5 million jobs. Hopefully, the Democratic dominated Congress will give the green light to the plans as soon as Obama is sworn in to get the new “New Deal” off the ground.

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