WTF with Macedonia?!

Friend and former Phoenix staffer Jumana Farouky, now living in London and working for Time mag, has long contended that the entire world should be allowed to vote in US elections because . . . well, we're electing "the leader of the free world" after all. If the Jumana Plan had been put into place six years ago, we strongly suspect that Mr. Bush would have been back clearing brush in Crawford by the end of January 2005.

Of course, any such international election would quickly become rife with corruption and militant interference. More of what we accomplish so well right here in America already. (It would, however, make for a very interesting campaign season.) But as long as out-of-country vote surveys are purely a parlor exercises, we figure they may actually indicate something. That something, according to an online poll compiled by "three guys from Iceland,"  would be that if Obama doesn't win office here, he has lots of other options.

Yup, the candidate whose name doesn't sound quite so unusual elsewhere would, according to "If the World Could Vote" results, lead McCain 86.9% to 13.1%. (The site doesn't allow write-ins or list any third-party choices; we'll leave that for Ralph Nader to sort out with the three Icelanders.)

There's so much blue on the "If the World Could Vote" map, that voting patterns are difficult to pick out, but there are some tidbits to crunch. It's no real surprise that McCain collected 40% of the votes in the republic of Georgia, since he's on record as being willing to launch World War 3 in that former Soviet state's defense. McCain also commands the lead in Albania, with 59.1%. That, we can attribute to Albania generally being a pretty fucked-up place that's managed to be on the wrong side of almost every issue since Philip 2nd of Macedonia sacked the place in the fourth century. (Only 22 Albanians voted in this survey, and, at that, they probably had to share a computer with the neighbor's goat.)

But speaking of Macedonia . . . if (please, God) McCain comes out a loser on election day, he might consider making a bid for office in that generally peaceful former Yugoslavian backwater where he won a resounding 87.6% of 434 votes. Go figure. To draw your own conclusions, visit If the World Could Vote. If nothing else, it could give you some tips on where to flee if things turn out badly next Tuesday. (Hint: Botswana and Bhutan look tempting, but they there were only five votes registered between them.)