A Chinese Straw Poll on the U.S. Presidential Election.

I have been following the U.S. Presidential election very closely while here in China.  It is something I would love to talk about with the students but most don't have an opinion about it.  So, I tried to encourage election discussion by other means.

On some issues, Chinese students won't offer you opinions, so what I often do is give the students multiple choices of positions or opinions on an issue.  For example, I gave the students four options for what they should do about North Korea from Invading it to doing nothing.

For the American election, I asked the students the following multiple choice question:

Who would you vote for?

1. The person who says "I promise hope and change!"
2. The person who says "I promise free medical service!"
3. The person who says "I promise you a strong army and free markets!"

You could say I am stating the positions of the three candidates left in the race.  The first two questions could be combined together to state the position of either Obama or Hilary, though clearly question #1 states Obama's campaign theme.  I am not sure if #3 states McCain's positions.  There is a controversy in the Republican party about whether he really supports free markets.  But, if I substituted free markets for control on government spending in the third statement it wouldn't have changed the results of the poll.

The Chinese students split their votes between the first two questions.  I was disappointed that none of the students saw statement #1 as being meaningless.  I wasn't surprised that none of the students choose the third statement which was my choice.