I can't tell you how many times Americans seem amazed/impressed/appalled that I care so much about their election. Maybe it's a side effect of being the world's remaining superpower, culturally and militarily, that you can't see the impact you have on the world, and hence distrust any 'furreners' who show any interest. But having studied, worked, and lived in the US, having had both my brothers marry Americans (as I did) and been traveling there frequently since I was 19, America is the country I admire/distrust/abjure/can't ignore in equal order. And I know that Obama's candidacy is so historic that I'm sending my first born son, aged only 18, to do what he can (in a quiet way) to work for the campaign
Why do I think it's so important? Actually, more importantly, why did my son (who can rarely be persuaded to make his bed let alone travel 3000 miles) think it was so important, that he moved heaven and earth in order to be involved in the campaign in the next forty days?
Well, he like I, has seen the only left of centre Prime Minister ever enjoy two re-elections. Yes, Tony Blair is our Bill Clinton. Only he effectively, thanks to our medieval constitution, got three terms. And yet, his premiership foundered. The Labour Party is at an all time low. The Conservatives are higher in the Polls than they've been for 20 years. And why? It comes down to a simple word: Iraq.
Thanks to Iraq, and Tony Blair's support for George W, millions of Brits were persuaded to permit this unseemly wasted war. Blair and Bush had little in common, except a streak of divine evangelism (rare in the UK, obligatory in the US). At the time, thanks to Blair (and several democratic friends in the State Department) I bought the bullshit about WMD's and Iraq's imminent nuclear capability. Like millions of other Brits, I bought into the transatlantic alliance that had kept Western Europe free for half a century of cold war. And like the American people, we were shafted. Our soldiers died/still die (in much lesser numbers) because of Blair's acquiescence to the Rumsfeld/Cheney neocon plan.
Our fate is hitched to yours so much that hell, why don't we just become the 51st state. We'd have more electoral college votes than California.
No taxation without representation, that is what Englishmen in the 18th century said to a German Monarch, and his German mercenary army. We're all being taxed by the credit crunch, and though I don't want or need a vote, and I can't contribute, and probably it's better that folks in Alabama don't know, this election is so important to world peace, the world economy, in fact the future of the whole planet, that I'm sending my first born son to fight for Obama.
And if anyone has a place he could stay in New York, between Oct 6th and Nov 9th, I'd be grateful for info.