I've been wandering around Frankfurt's annual book fair this weekend when I stumpled upon a presentation by German journalist Christoph von Marschall, former Washington correspondent of the Berlin-based daily Tagesspiegel, who was presenting his new book on Barack Obama. It was not so much the size of the crowd that was drawn to the event, but rather the audience's level of knowledge about the US election campaign that struck me most. It seemed as if everyone knew Obama as intimately as von Marshall (claimed he) does. And although Germans tend to see America more negatively these days than at any time before, there was great admiration and anticipation in developments on the other side of the pond.
But this observation of the importance that the US still has for the "ordinary German" was not the most interesting part of the event. After the author had finished his presentation, the audience was eager to spark a debate (which I had seen at no other occasion at this fair). A lady brought up a provocative question that dominated the rest of the evening. She was wondering why Americans accepted the way in which the campaigns adopt strategies of defaming each other, at times using false allegations, alluding to stereotypes, spreading rumours that are obviously untrue and generally engaging in a battle of smears. Why is negative campaigning tolerated?
This is not to imply that election campaigns over here are clean and fair, but they certainly dive to lowly depths in the US. Does this stem from the difference in how "freedom of speech" is valued on either side of the Atlantic? Or rather due to a more diverse, and possibly more radical, media landscape in the US? I'm not quite sure and thought I'd put this up for debate here. So what do you think? Why do American elections always seem to scrape the bottom of the barrel? Or am I mistaken and there is no actual difference between what transpires in Europe and in the US?
