Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all glad Joe Lieberman went down last night. But many many kilometers away in the small, northern European country of Estonia another election is about to get underway - the Estonian Presidential Election.
While Estonia - south of Finland, north of Latvia, population 1.3 million - is not exactly on everyone's tongues this morning, it has traditionally been, like its Finnish neighbor, in the ambiguous zone where the West and the East meet to drink vodka and talk spheres of influence.
One of the strongest voices to emerge from the mess of the Soviet collapse was Estonia's first post-occupation president, Lennart Meri. Meri's voice changed minds about East Europe in Stockholm, and Berlin, in London, Paris, Washington, and even Moscow.
More recently, Vaira Vike Freiberga, the president of Estonia's neighbor Latvia, has assumed a similar role. Her name was thrown around as a potential UN secretary general at one point, and NATO will meet this November in Riga.
It is therefore in everyone's interest to learn a little bit more about the events in this small country over the coming weeks.
First, a little history lesson. Estonia is inhabited by Finnic people. Their language is similar to Finnish, Karelian, Sami - and more distantly Hungarian. Estonia has been in contest between West and East for centuries. It was ruled by local chieftains until it was conquered by German crusaders in the 13th century. It was Swedish possession in the 17th century, then a Russian possession in the 18th and 19th centuries. It declared its independence from Russia in 1918 and set up a parliamentary democracy.
Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union as a consequence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact in 1940, and did not regain its independence until the USSR fell in 1991. At that time the country reinstated its constitution, and became, once again, a parliamentary democracy.
Estonian presidential elections are held every five years. Unlike the US president, the Estonian president is not so much a leader of government as a ceremonial figurehead. The real work in parliament is done by the prime minister, who is appointed by the president following parliamentary elections, which are held every four years.
The Estonian president however is treated as an ambassador for his or her country abroad and in the past has brokered important deals for the country. For example, Estonia's first post-war president, Lennart Meri, negotiated the Russian troop withdrawal of 1994.
The president in Estonia, however, is not directly elected by the people. Instead candidates are put forward by the parties in government, and a joint candidate is agreed upon for a secret vote. The candidate must get two-thirds of the vote, or else the election is sent to an electoral college, made up of local representatives.
While President Lennart Meri was elected in parliament in 1991 and 1996, his successor Arnold Rüütel, was elected in 2001 because parliament could not agree on a common candidate.
This year Rüütel, 78, the former head of the Estonian SSR during the transition to independence, has said he will not run in the parliamentary election. However, if elected by the electoral college, he has agreed to serve a second term.
Currently the parties have yet to unite behind a common candidate for the parliamentary presidential vote, scheduled for later this month.
The two current candidates for that vote are Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a former foreign minister and a current member of the European parliament, and parliament speaker Ene Ergma.
Several of Estonia's parties have already signalled they will back Ilves, a Social Democrat. Interestingly, Estonia's two largest right-wing parties - the Reform Party (economic liberals) and the Union of Res Publica and Isamaa (nationalists) have agreed to back Ilves. Between Reform, Res Publica and Isamaa (which translates to 'fatherland') and the Social Dems, plus unaffilated MPs, the coalition in favor of Ilves (or Ergma - a common candidate has yet to be decided) has 66 votes in the 101 member parliament.
They need 68 to elect a president.
Meanwhile, the parliament's second largest party, the Center Party, has not yet endorsed a candidate. The Center Party is led by Edgar Savisaar, a former prime minister and mayor of the capital Tallinn who currently serves as economy minister.
The Center Party is generally criticized as being too close to the Russians, or former Soviet monied interests. The party, for example, signed an agreement of cooperation with the United Russia party in 2004.
The Center Party's main coalition partner has been the Estonian People's Union, to which Rüütel belongs. Estonian People's Union head Villu Reiljan has said that he is seeking to instate Rüütel for a second term if a candidate cannot be agreed upon in parliament. There are signs that Savisaar and Reiljan are close to signing an agreement that will allow them to massage the system to keep Rüütel in office another five years.
Who in the end will prevail? People suspect Rüütel may eke out another term due to a technicality. But you never know. Even politics in small country like Estonia can be interesting. We will find out during the last week of August.