High Five! [Kirsten]
February 9, 2008Just wanted to share a cute little story with you. Last night I was out and a bouncer at one of the pubs I frequent was puzzling over the New York drivers’ license I gave as ID. He’s taken it many times before, but this time he couldn’t make sense of it and passed it to the other bouncer, an older man with a Caribbean accent.
“Oh, what part of New York are you from?”
“Staten Island. Nothing very exciting I’m afraid!”
“Is that where Clinton is from?”
“No, she’s from further north. Staten Island is a part of New York City.” (It pained me unbelievably to say that Clinton was from New York at all, but I wasn’t about to start calling her a usurper to the bouncer!)
“Aah.”
“Why, are you a Hilary Clinton fan?”
“No! Obama!”
“Me too! That’s awesome!”
And then I high fived the bouncer and I felt really good.
It’s interesting that people who have absolutely no investment in the process whatsoever still know about our politics. I guess you could say that the US makes darn sure that its government choices affect the entire world, but I’d still wager that there are people in the US who know less about the primaries than that man, a Caribbean immigrant to the UK. While celebrating “Pancake Day” on Tuesday with some of my British friends we also had a discussion about the primaries, where they proved to be very knowledgeable about parties, the nominating process, delegates and the candidates. When you contrast that to my complete lack of knowledge of how the heck Gordon Brown ended up as the PM… well I don’t know if it’s the education systems, the fact that the BBC–the ‘mainstream media’–actually understands that there are countries besides the one they are based in…I just don’t know.
But basically, that’s the gist of it. I’m really impressed. I wish Americans would show the same savvy.
Hi girls! I like your blog – interesting topic, and timely as well. I found it as I was looking into absentee ballots for the Ohio primary, since it occurred to me that my vote from Israel might actually count in this one. What led you to create this blog, and what do you plan to do with it?
Oh, and I’d be happy to contribute to your blog, as I’m a young expat myself, but I’m afraid I’m quite the lefty, and you seem to have those bases covered already.
Hi, I’m afraid I’ve only just got round to checking out your blog, despite you importing your posts into facebook and the fact you mentioned it in our meeting with Ross on Monday, but I thought, what the hey, it’s never too late to comment.
Firstly, I really enjoyed our chat at the pancake party (and subsequent musings – mainly in pubs!) because I relish the opportunity to talk about the elections in the US with real-life, living breathing Americans for once, rather than the purely-abstract, stranger-observing-from-afar approach that got me through 2004.
I also think that perhaps the reason some of us Brits pay so much attention (other than those of us that chose to study it for a degree) is that, despite not being citizens, the actions of the US do affect us significantly – just look at what happened with the Blair-Bush love affair. Britain, on the other hand, simply doesn’t have a powerful enough impact on American policy for all but the most determined of politics fans to know anything about our political system. Mind you, there’s plenty of Brits who don’t seem to know anything about our political system either but I’ll leave that for when I set up my British politics blog…
Oh and we have The West Wing to tell us how elections work. You don’t get the luxury of anything as great as that about the UK. :-p