Assess The Factors Outcome 2008 President Election

1119 Words5 Pages
Assess the factors that determined the outcome of the 2008 Presidential election. (45) The 2008 Presidential election will go down in history which was watched by the whole world. For the Democratic Party, the choice was a black candidate called Barack Obama who had a magnificent aura and style about him, and for the Republican party, a no nonsense war hero in the form of John McCain. The outcome resulted in Barack Obama being inaugurated as the 44th President and the first Black American to become President with 52.9% of the vote whom many citizens hailed as the man who would help get them out of the recession. There were many factors throughout the election which had an impact which I will explain below. The first factor which determined the outcome of the 2008 presidential election was the fact that Obama was backed by the elites and the wealthy, the most notable elite being Warren Buffet. These elites gave as much money as the laws enabled them to but they also gave Obama their names, a strong PR move which gave Obama the edge as people who looked up to the endorsers would then side with them. These two factors also argue that elitism outweighs pluralism in America, and that elitism was so strong, that it determined the outcome with supporters of for example Warren Buffet voting for who he endorsed. However, there is also reason to suggest that this is not the case, and that pluralism determined the outcome of the 2008 election. A significant percentage of America’s population voted in the 2004 election, with even more predicted to vote in the 2008 election which was the case. People were and still are politically aware and therefore made up their own mind. This may have been due to e.g. voting for change and rationally by voting Democratic instead of Republican, or because they believed in Obama. Obama received roughly 120 newspaper endorsements, compared
Open Document