I’m watching Obama-mania on the TV, as the Democratic National Convention wraps up with its big finale.  I’ve never been terribly political, save for a brief spell as an anti-consumerist in the earlier part of the decade.  I see young people on the streets going nuts for Obama but really, American politics is none of our business as Canadians.  On the other hand, American politics is world politics.

I like when an election is at the end of the term for the guy in office.  We kind of got ripped off of that the last time here in Canada because Jean Chretien quit and then they picked a new Prime Minister to replace him, and then had an election.  So the last time we’ve seen this was in 2000 in the Gore/Bush American election.  And back then, Bush won because of what one of the speakers says in that movie The Secret about how it doesn’t matter if people love you or hate you, you just have to make yourself the focus of the attention to win the election.

In 2000, all of the attention was on Bush whether one was for or against him.  And then he won.  And then in 2004, it was the same thing.  Kerry ran on the ‘anything-but-Bush’ ticket.  And in both of those elections, I only got to see the negative attention.  This time around, all of the attention is on Obama and it’s so refreshing that it’s positive attention this time.

I’ve never related to the idea that only a major-party candidate can win an election.  I remember when I would watch election coverage on the television as a kid, I couldn’t figure out the attitude towards the thing where candidates would say whatever they could to get elected.  I thought that it was supposed to be a whole bunch of people putting their ideas out there and people will just vote for the guy whose ideas they like best.

My mother and grandmother once returned home from voting and I asked them who they had voted for.  My mother had voted for a major-party candidate, but my grandmother did not.

“I voted for the Green Party”, she said.  That was when it hit me that it was OK to break the rules.

Tags: Barack Obama, life, memories, politics, vote