Since the United States is the world's only real superpower, whose military arsenal is many times greater than the rest of the world's put together, the President of the United States becomes, in some ways, the President of the whole world. The General Secretary of the United Nations is nothing in comparison with the President of the United States.
So when the people of the United States elect their President, the rest of the world gets that President too, only we didn't get the chance to vote for him (or her?). So it shouldn't be surprising that we, too, are interested in who gets elected.
There has never been a female or a black President of the United States before. I quite agree that what really matters when it comes to the President is his (or her?) politics. But I agree with Alcyone that if a woman or a black man were to get elected this time, it would be a historical first time, after more than two hundred years of American history and after forty-three white male Presidents. Surely such a thing would be moving in itself. Suddenly the position of "President of the world" would be open to people on the "wrong side" of the color and gender barrier.
Ann
