The race that stopped the world

On the second Tuesday of November, Australia holds the Melbourne Cup, which is an incredibly popular horse race that has been dubbed "the race that stops a nation."

But this year, as everyone in the world knows, there was another race going on that day, too: the US elections. And yes, the rest of the world was just as riveted by the elections as US citizens were - certainly here in Australia:
- everyone in our office had an election map up on their computer and closely followed the blow-by-blow
- our 7-year old neighbour knew Obama was one of the candidates
- people pulled their kids out of school to watch Obama's acceptance speech (because it was Wednesday afternoon in AU when he gave it)
- morning radio talk shows were all about the results (not just the news stations, but the pop stations, too)
- people who had never been to the US got shivers or started crying when they watched Obama's speech

Needless to say, Australians are just as excited as most of the rest of the world that Obama won. Regardless of what other things Obama does or does not accomplish, I think this marks a huge change in the US' international standing - it's like national leaders around the world have turned into giddy school girls with a crush on the cute new guy.