The presidential election in the United States is a long process, and it must go through the stages of primary election, nomination, election, referendum and electoral college voting before it can successfully enter the White House.

According to the Constitution of the United States, the United States has a presidential system, and the executive power belongs to the President. Presidential elections are held every four years and can be re-elected. The president is also the commander-in-chief of the three armed forces. He is not responsible to Congress.

● Presidential candidacy

According to the Constitution of the United States, a candidate running for president must meet the following conditions: born in the United States, at least 35 years old, and have lived in the United States for at least 14 years.

elective system

I. Party primaries

During the election year from February to June, political parties held primary elections in various states, which led party representatives to attend the National Congress.

There are two election methods. One is "direct primary election", which directly elects party representatives through voter voting. The second is the "party and group meeting", in which representatives at all levels are elected from the grassroots (such as counties) to all levels, and finally the representatives of political parties attending the national congress are elected at the state representative meeting.

At present, most States adopt direct primary election, among which New Hampshire is the first state to conduct direct primary election. Iowa is the first state in the United States to hold a party group meeting. The primary election results of these two States will affect the election results of subsequent States and are regarded as the wind ball of the general election.

Two. Party National Congress/Party Nomination

The two parties usually hold their own national congresses in July and August, and each state elects representatives to attend the national congresses, at which they elect their own presidential and vice presidential candidates, listen to the reports of various committees, and at the same time formulate party programs.

In May and June, most members of the National Congress have been elected, and it is clear how many representatives each presidential candidate has, and who will win the final nomination of the political party has basically been decided. Therefore, the national congress is actually only the last procedure to approve the nomination of presidential and vice presidential candidates.

The nomination of presidential candidates is usually held on the third or fourth day of the conference.

Third, the campaign.

From September to 1 1 month, presidential and vice presidential candidates proposed by political parties immediately launched nationwide campaign activities, including meeting voters, TV speeches, TV debates, etc. The campaign lasted eight to nine weeks and cost a lot of money.

Four. vote

Voting in the presidential election is divided into two processes, one is referendum, and the other is electoral college voting.

Referendum: The first Tuesday after the first week of the election year 1 1 month is clearly designated as the polling day. In fact, this day's referendum is not to elect a president, but to elect an "electoral college" representing voters. The electoral college will elect the president in a later vote, so it can be said that the presidential election in the United States is not a direct election, but an indirect election.

Electoral College Voting: On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in the election year1February, members of the electoral college will vote separately in the state capitals to elect the president and vice president. The official election results were actually determined on the day of the referendum, so the electoral college's voting is only a form and has no substantive significance.

Verb (abbreviation for verb) is elected/sworn in.

The voting results of the state presidential election will be announced by the President of the Senate at the joint meeting of the Senate and the House of Representatives on the afternoon of the following year 1 6/US Eastern Time. The elected president and vice president will be sworn in at noon on the 20th of the same year 1 month.

Electoral college system

The combination of electors from all States in the United States is called the Electoral College. According to the US Constitution, the president is not elected by Congress or voters, but by electors elected by voters.

Each state has the same number of electors as the total number of members of the Senate and House of Representatives. The District of Columbia, where the federal government is located, has no congressional representatives. In the constitutional amendment of 196 1, the district was given three electoral seats. Therefore, the electors equivalent to 100 senators (two from each state), plus the number of deputies equivalent to 435, plus three electors from the District of Columbia, can get a total of 538 electoral votes.

A presidential candidate can be declared elected if he gets 270 electoral votes, that is, more than half of the national electoral votes.

● Voter counting system

At present, except Maine and Nebraska, 48 other states adopt the "winner takes all" electoral system. If a political party candidate gets more votes than his opponent in the state, he can get all the electoral votes in the state. The official name of this system is "Universal Ticket System".

Maine and Nebraska adopt the "constituency counting system", in which a candidate who obtains a simple majority vote in each constituency, that is, a candidate who obtains a majority vote in that constituency, can win two electoral votes (representing two senators).

The winner-takes-all system, usually after the voting results of big States are announced, will widen the gap between the leaders or quickly narrow the gap behind them. The regional vote counting system was adopted by most States in the19th century, emphasizing the fairness of "region" and "whole state".

American presidential election model

The president of the United States is not directly elected by the people, but by the representatives of the electoral college designated by the States in proportion to the population. A candidate who wins a relative majority of votes in a state may be elected by his party to represent all the electoral college in that state. This system came into being because when the United States made the constitution, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention had no intention of deciding the way of presidential election, so they provided several electoral college representatives in each state, and each state decided the way of formation on its own. At present, the representatives of the electoral college in each state are elected by the people.

This selection method is somewhat special. For example, the candidate who gets the most votes in the country may not get the most electoral votes. This happened three times in American history: 1826, 1888 and 2000. Opponents of this electoral law think that this system is undemocratic, because the person with the highest public support is not necessarily the president. Supporters of this system believe that this presidential election law can prevent localism. Because a candidate who gets a narrow majority of popular votes in many States may be better than a candidate who gets an overwhelming majority of popular votes in only one state. Therefore, in order to get electoral votes, candidates must generally consider the requirements of various regions in the United States, not just some of them.

American general election and "American values"

The National Congress of the Democratic Party of the United States held in Denver from August 25 to 28, in addition to rallying the strength of the whole party, also has an important task, which is to shape the party's presidential candidate Obama into the embodiment of the "American Dream" and establish his image as a "typical American" and a "spokesman for American values".

Obama's wife, Michelle, gave a speech on the first day of the conference, featuring "warm cards", trying to convince voters that their family are ordinary Americans and always abide by traditional American values. Both she and Obama love the United States and firmly believe that "the United States has an obligation to fight for maintaining world order."

Ted Kennedy, a senior senator from the Democratic Party, tearfully told the audience that he had found a long-lost "American dream" in Obama.

Why does Obama highlight "American values"? According to American media reports, in the opinion of his team, the reason why he can't break the situation of being evenly matched with * * * and McCain in the party at present is not only the weakness of inexperience, but also because many voters still have doubts about whether he can represent "American values". This challenge mainly comes from three aspects.

First of all, the United States is a society dominated by white Europeans, and such voters account for more than 70% of the total number of voters. Today, racial prejudice still exists in the United States. In the eyes of some white voters, Obama's special mixed-race identity and special growth experience cannot represent "typical Americans and American values."

Secondly, ordinary American voters have always had a tradition of "anti-elitism". Some scholars believe that most European immigrants who settled in North America in the early days were ordinary workers, so they have a deep-rooted disdain for so-called "social elites" such as intellectuals and professionals. Frilander, a correspondent of the British Guardian in the United States, said that in order to get rid of the label of "elite", American politicians must make voters think that his ideas and lifestyle are the same as those of ordinary people, especially white civilians. For example, watching football matches, listening to country music and drinking beer.

Compared with party member and, politicians of the Democratic Party have more intellectual backgrounds and pay more attention to "taste", so they are easily labeled as "elites". Obama faces a similar problem. He chose Biden, a white senator from a civilian background, as his deputy, hoping to strengthen his ability to communicate with white voters.

From the family background, American President George W. Bush is an "elite", but he successfully portrayed his Democratic opponent as an "elite" in both general elections and finally won. Compared with these Democratic opponents, Bush's words and actions seem to be closer to "ordinary Americans".

Third, in foreign policy, the mainstream American society has always had a sense of superiority, believing that the United States is "the elector of God" and has "the obligation to save the world". The direct consequence of this is power politics and double standards. Obama must do something in this regard and convince voters.

In order to win the support of the "mainstream society", Obama's recent stance on some international issues has gradually moved closer to the "mainstream". For example, he said that he would "reset" the tone of his Iraq policy, but did not promise to withdraw all troops from Iraq. On the conflict between Russia and Georgia, he advocated "further isolating Russia", which is almost the same as the Bush administration and McCain.

It should be pointed out that although the foreign policy propositions of the two parties in the United States have always been different, there is no essential difference, and they are ultimately aimed at safeguarding the "core values" and "core interests" of the United States. Neither Obama nor McCain will deviate from this "value axis".

United States: Presidential candidates spend a record.

From June+10 in 5438, judging from the campaign expenses of the two presidential candidates, they created the most expensive presidential election in American history.

According to the latest statistics of the Federal Election Commission in September, * * * and party presidential candidate John McCain * * * raised $230 million for their campaign, and actually spent $654.38+94 billion; Democratic presidential candidate Obama raised $454 million for himself and has spent $377 million so far.

The main items that the two presidential candidates spend money on are flying around for the campaign, paying the salaries of consultants and other staff, and buying TV advertising time.

Statistics show that the donations received by the two presidential candidates mainly come from private donations, and the private donations received by Obama and McCain account for 95% and 80% of their total campaign funds respectively.

It is estimated that the total expenditure during the US presidential election will reach about $654.38+$300 million, together with other candidates' inner-party campaign activities in the primary election.

According to the statistics of the Federal Election Commission, the CPC and the Democratic Party spent $477 million and $750 million respectively in the presidential election.