This isn't news, BBC News 24, until they start the counting.

[whatho]

I just saw a man on the telly called Tucker Bounds. He's a Republican, it transpires, so he totally deserves it. But still. How does a thing like that come to be?

I don't understand anything about the US on balance. I don't understand how they made their election last two years and I don't understand the rallies and the cheering and the flags and the inflatables and I don't understand how they get by without Peter Snow. Or even a single Dimbleby. And for all that it's undeniably unmitigated redneck disaster vs. comparatively saintly landmark, it must be powerfully grim having to choose a Tory - basically - to keep a fascist out of office. Well, I know Mr Obama's more socially-conscious and low-income friendly than I'm pretending ... probably ... I suppose. And it might be - very nice. But it's hardly socialism without an NHS and other people's enthusiasm makes me fiercely hug my cynicism. Though massively pleased to have vanquished a Major, I do recall the pain of getting a Blair when I felt very much owed a John Smith.

I do like that people are queuing to vote. I've never seen that here. I've decided it's because we have faster and more numerous polling facilities. Do not attempt to disillusion me.

Mostly I've been spending the morning trying to find another country having an election so I can burble fannishly about that instead. I don't think it's good for the US's ego to pay this much attention to its election. I failed anyway. But Mother says she can't shake the assumption that the outcome will be decided by Craig, Arlene, Len and Bruno, and that Len will have the casting vote. I love that Mother's watching the dancing.

Comments

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

But Mother says she can't shake the assumption that the outcome will be decided by Craig, Arlene, Len and Bruno, and that Len will have the casting vote.

All elections should be decided with a dance competition. All of them.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I'd be a bit terrified McCain would get the sympathy vote for being old. But the public doesn't get a say in the dance off, so actually that'd be less of an issue. Good. I WANT TO GORDON BROWN DO A PASO DOBLE.

[girlofprey.livejournal.com]

BUT WITH CAPE OF WITHOUT CAPE? His cape could be decorated with economic statistics. I think the process of being critised and critiqued by the judges before being elcted would do NOTHING BUT GOOD for the political situation.

I can't shake the feeling that at the end of the series all the dancers will be revealed to secretly be an ELITE FIGHTING FORCE. Possibly going to the see the Military Acrobatic Troupe of China has influenced me. Or they might fight zombies. I'd quite like to see them fight zombies for some reason.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

WE HAVE MADE POLITICS SO MUCH BETTER TODAY.

[jekesta]

I love your post. It's very much everything I would want to say about the american election if I could manage to post about it without mostly going 'OH GOD YOU ARE ALL MAD' at people who probably don't deserve it.

We could have lent them a Dimbleby if they'd asked.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

We could have lent them a Dimbleby if they'd asked.

Maybe they did ask, but we said no ON PRINCIPLE to PROVE WE ARE NOT LAPDOGS TO THE US.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I kept editing my post because first I decided it was too cynical and then I decided it was NOWHERE NEAR CYNICAL ENOUGH. I'm getting fairly bored of ... everything.

And they don't know how to do an election AT ALL if they think they're okay to go ahead without any sort of a Dimbleby. I'm not saying a John makes for a particularly genuine experience, but it'd be better than nothing at all. They don't even have a Michael Brunson.

[jekesta]

I tried to write a post for what seemed like hours and was much the same. It's so weird that even fairly sensible people have just gone SO AMERICAN about Obama and are just loving him wholeheartedly without going 'well he's a politician, and quite quite fake, and won't stop smiling, but I suppose it's better than not', and maybe it'll all be lovely and everything, but I can just hear Avon going 'Gung ho' in the background and I think maybe America don't hear that. I HATE CHARISMATIC PEOPLE. I DON'T KNOW WHY WE SHOULD LOVE THEM.

I mostly want to be american just so that I can comment to EVERYONE'S POSTS and go 'I was going to vote for Obama, obviously I was, but I read your smug post begging me to understand how important it was, as if I was a fish and didn't know about voting, has caused me to stay at home and eat cheesecake instead.' BECAUSE OH GOD THEIR SMUG VOTING POSTS.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

OH GOD PEOPLE. Probably it's very sweet that folk are believing election pledges are laws already and that politicians mid-campaign will follow through on their promises instead of cackling into their hands a bit, but REALLY PEOPLE. Obviously it'll be so much better than not if the barking-mad millionaire-loving gun-toting fascists don't get to have the power (though clearly I needed THE HELP OF THE SMUG before I worked that one out) but the alternative's not actually Nye Bevan crossed with Gandhi.

I don't love the charismatic either. Salespeople are charismatic and the people I trust are scared of the 'phone. I think I want do Avon to be president on balance.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I don't love the charismatic either. Salespeople are charismatic

I always looked at Blair and expected him to try and tell me that the second hand car was the BEST THING EVER and I should buy it now.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'd love very much to be wrong about politicians and the extent to which they honour campaign promises, but probably you can see where that sentence is going. Not finding McCain in power tomorrow will, if it happens, be a massive relief, but I think expecting the things a lot of people seem to be expecting from Obama is kind of setting oneself up for a fall.

[jekesta]

THE HELP OF THE SMUG

This made me laugh for embarrassing long moments. THE HELP OF THE SMUG. It should totally be a service where you can call people for help, and they just tell you that of course they've never had that problem because they planned ahead/thought more quickly/are just BETTER than you. I think smug is one of the best words I've ever seen.

Avon can't be president. Blake is president and Avon is his senior advisor. HAVE YOU NEVER READ FIC??? You can't go CHANGING the rules now. If Blake was president then everything he said would be followed by Avon ripping it to shreds in front of everyone anyway and it would be much more palatable. Also slashy.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Smug is a slightly great word. I don't know how significant its similarity to smeg is. I think actually it holds its own. I very much want that helpline to exist and refuse to believe it doesn't.

David Dimbleby just called Pennsylvania a big potato and then really, really regretted it.

The fic got it MORE RIGHT than I did there. Yes. Blake making speeches, Avon doing a tiny disbelieving smile in the background but also very much in the frame. That's the way it should be.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

Though massively pleased to have vanquished a Major, I do recall the pain of getting a Blair when I felt very much owed a John Smith.


Oh YES. Oh, very much yes.

Mother says she can't shake the assumption that the outcome will be decided by Craig, Arlene, Len and Bruno, and that Len will have the casting vote

I don't even watch the dancing but this is BRILLIANT and makes me happy.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

I was VERY SAD about John Smith. Sadder than comically shouty capital letters can suggest. I actually remember hearing about his death because I was in a French lesson in Year 9 and there was a girl who liked to spend her French lessons listening to a hidden radio rather than learning how to order two-star petrol in Normandy, and in the middle of an unfortunate silence she said, quite loudly, 'John Smith's died!' I'd been quite excited about his getting in because my parents had been going on about how they wanted him to be the party leader since I was about three or something and then it actually happened, and then he went and died. Boo.

And it made my May 1st 1997 significantly less ecstatic than it ought to have been.

Also I'm now completely enamoured of the idea of politics being decided via a dance-off. I don't think there's much wrong with the notion of choosing candidates according to their dancing ability. If you've spent your life learning to dance you probably haven't had time to do anything appalling.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

I think a dance-off would be good, because we could see how people got on with partners and such like, which would BODE WELL (or ill) for politics.

Oh. I was friends with a Tory when John Smith died. I'm glad to say she threw me over because I wasn't good enough, not too long later. But yes. Still a slightly painful memory (the throwing over, as well as the death.)

[matildabj.livejournal.com]

I've decided it's because we have faster and more numerous polling facilities.

... and you'd be right.

Plus they're all voting in about a gazillion different elections at the same time. But still. We have more polling stations, probably because we don't need all those machines.

[whatho.livejournal.com]

Also they're using hole-punches instead of pencils, yes. We're epically advanced.