Obama Has It

It's been two weeks since the election finally came to pass. The race for the White House had been going since The Missus and I moved to the US and now at last, it's finished. Up to mid-October the Republicans and the Democrats spent a combined total of  $30.33 per second on their rallies, handouts and TV adverts. After over $1.7 billion spent, Obama was returned to the White House as statistician Nate Silver said he would be. Mr Silver's  near mathematical certainty was correct. The relief that Obama won has been expressed all over the city but so too has despair, exhaustion, disillusionment and anger at the process, the campaigns and the record breaking expenditure. It may not be any consolation to either parties but one thing that has been achieved, outside of Nate Silver's predictions,  is that this Englishman has reevaluated how he sees the US, the Presidency, and the process and politics back home.

Much has been made of the rivalries between Mitt Romney and President Obama. The campaign was  fought bitterly but the rhetoric from Obama himself was more often than not measured, calm and reasoned. Romney unfortunately chose a more partisan route and this may have been one of the reasons he lost. A striking example of the difference between the two camps' approaches came from Michelle Obama appearing on The Late Show With David Letterman. She deftly avoided the host's attempts at soliciting a disparaging remark at the Republican campaign and its vitriol, choosing instead to stress that watching as much as possible of both parties' conventions was what's important and encouraging all Americans to go out and vote, regardless of which candidate they decided to vote for. 

Having worked hard to prise opinion out of the locals there was and still is extreme anger levelled at the sniping between both parties and the lack of progress made at both state and federal levels. This anger could have lead to many deciding not to vote but when election day finally came around Americans queued to register their ballot.  It took me by surprise just how enthusiastic they were to do so. People wore their "I VOTED" stickers with pride. People engaged with the political process by waiving placard on streets, eager to convince any of those undecided to vote their way. Hundreds of volunteers headed to campaign headquarters to handout fliers and, at a Democratic centre I visited, volunteers, mainly twenty-somethings phoned battleground states to convince the key swing electorate to vote Obama. At the Democratic HQ in San Francisco, 32,000 calls has been placed by 2pm; over 6000 calls an hour. I saw people walk in off the streets to volunteer their time, helping the last push in any way they could.

The enormous campaigns ended up being decided by relatively small numbers of voters in the swing states of Florida, Virginia, Massachusetts and of course Ohio. Ohio, a state where for the majority of the time everyone just flies over, ignoring it's existence as it's just one of the square ones in the middle. Yet, come election time, the world's media descends and its good folk get to decide the fate of the nation, almost single-handedly.

 The importance of voters at grassroots had never been so apparent. The significance of  the exercise of voting, even in San Francisco, a city in  a state that both always "go democrat", citizens wanted to get involved. For an election that has not just a local or national but global impact, it was striking how almost lo-fi it was. Used to voting in the UK, a country at best apathetic to its own political process and used to voting in schools closed for the day, I was struck by how homely and local the US election felt. Not just because it was about the people but also for the physical location of polling stations. I searched for two near the apartment and headed down to take a look.

The first I visited was in a spit and sawdust gym. Booths had been installed down one side and as people pondered their candidate of choice on the other, children noisily took their taekwondo class. Giving out the ballots were two high school students and an adult supervisor.  It's odd enough walking into a school to vote, with the aromas of wood polished for decades and the faint smell of school dinner still clinging in the air, instantly transporting you back to your old school days. Voting in sweaty backstreet gym bring the process down to a different level again.   Whereas youth voters in the UK are disengaged with the political process, here we have those not even old vote getting involved. In fact it was the youth vote, along with women and the non-white demographic who secured the election for Obama. UK, take note.

One block over from the apartment, in a someone's garage, I found the second local polling station. Apart from running for office, I'm hard pushed to imagine a more direct example of involvement than giving up your house on election day. Still, people turned up to the surreal venue, casting their ballot amoungst the tools, drill bits and bikes suspended from the garage walls. The election, followed by so many people internationally, suddenly seemed quite literally, homely.

Note the nice touch of a portaloo (portapotty)

 Not only were Californians asked to vote on the Presidency but, like a few other states, California has a form of direct democracy. This means that any motion can be added to the ballot as a proposition should its supporters collect a number of signatures on a petition equating to 8% or more of the amount of people who voted in the incumbent governor. This leads to the ballot being a numbing five pages.  Some chose to educate themselves on each proposition. Some, like two guys I overheard, devised more elaborate means, such as an intricate system based on their favourite Thai restaurant menu.

Being on the West Coast, it didn't take long on election night for the result to come through. In fact, polls were still open in California when it was called for Obama and plans of watching the results come through in a bar were dashed. If I could have voted, I would have voted for Obama so in a way, I saw my candidate win.

Suddenly the obscene rallies and flag waving; the hysteria when Obama is in town, made sense. Obama delivered a jaw-droppingly rousing and patriotic victory speech. He was the hero again. Two years ago, with a view from England, I thought there was something obscene about the US election rallies. There's nothing like them in the UK and so my only reference were the Nazis rallies in the 1930s. Yet looking at them from within the US, they're no different to the X-Factor. I would much rather people became worked up and near hysterical over their politicians than a group of pubescent teenagers singing karaoke. May be, just may be, the UK misses out by not having the same spark surrounding its political elite.

So, after watching my first full US election cycle, I hang my head in a little bit of shame for the times that I have jeered, sneered and mocked Americans for their elections. Americans aren't stupid, far from it. In fact it is almost as if tarnishing America as a country of ill-informed rednecks, hill-billies and hicks, is an acceptable face of racism. Perhaps their electoral system is not perfect but then neither is the UK's.  Certainly a lot more people in the US are engaged and passionate about their politics but theirs is culture where, however infuriating it may be, they choose not to discuss it.