Awwwww.
Having lived abroad for the last 3 years, my perspective of the United States of America is once again coloured by a European filter. Nevertheless, I am still a registered Democrat, and last week faxed and posted my absentee ballot to be counted at the City Hall in Waltham MA.
The choice for me was not difficult. The Republicans generally seem so far to the right these days that a vote for them would be voting for my own death sentence. It's just so sad that so many are voting against a particular candidate instead of for someone. As my blogroller Echidne of the Snakes wrote recently:
"How should I put this best? Voting for Barack Obama is like choosing shingles. Voting for Mitt Romney is like choosing a terminal illness. I prefer the former, though naturally I'd love to feel perfectly healthy. But we are all going to have one of those two conditions, and in my view the Obama-condition is much more bearable and less dangerous."
It is also a bit scary that the entire election may rest on the way that the candidates respond to Hurricane Sandy. If Barack is Presidential, he may gain voters; and if Romney is not, he will sink. O well, at least it's a better basis for choice than who has the best hair (in London last weekend, Margaret Cho suggested that elections are often won by hair, e.g., JFK vs Nixon, Clinton vs Bush 1 and Ross Perot).
Thinking of those currently victims of the hurricane ...
