Obligatory Post Election Blog

Since 2004 I've been making a habit of commenting - on - the - election  on this blog.  So, for the sake of tradition if nothing else, I'll drop in my two cents here.

Even though I don't really have anything important to say.

I never really thought that Romney had much of a chance of winning.  Sure things got a little close the last couple weeks, but other than that he always seemed like a long shot.  I was one of those people who assumed from the first that Obama would be a two-term President, and the fact that the Republicans failed to field any serious candidates this year, that their primary was a long disaster, and that Romney's campaign was one long disaster all contributed to my not wasting too much time worrying about this election.

And now that we have Obama in office for another 4 years, we can presumably expect more of the same, for good or for bad.  So not too much to write about either way.

I didn't actually vote this election.  Once again absentee ballots looked to be too much trouble.
According to the US Embassy Website in Phnom Penh, the deadline for Michigan residents to request an overseas absentee ballot would have been February 28th [LINK HERE], a deadline I totally missed because I wasn't even thinking about the election back then.  Although anecdotally, I'm told by a number of my fellow Americans that the Embassy staff is much more helpful in person, and does their best to accommodate and get around all these laws.  (Someone even told me, again only anecdotally, that the Embassy staff were themselves very confused by all the different voting laws from all the different states that they just accept absentee ballots from anyone).  But by the time I heard this new information, the election was already happening.

I got a fair amount of grief for not voting from my Australian and British friends, who were all terrified at the prospect of a Romney victory, and were trying to badger every American they could into voting.

  I've written before on this blog how the expat community abroad is a lot different than back home.  Back in America, the nation may be divided 50-50 Republican Democrats, but in the expat circles overseas everyone is solidly Democrat.  It's true among the Americans, but it seems to be especially true among the Brits and Australians.

The election results came in Wednesday morning Cambodia time while we were at work.  (Which, by the way, is not near as much fun as staying up late in the night back in America.  I miss those late night election parties.)
As soon as it was announced Obama had won, many of the Australians and British would announce something like, "Oh, well thank goodness for that."
Then, they would realize I, an American, was standing right besides them, and they would apologize and say, "You didn't vote for the Republicans, did you?"  And I would assure them I also supported Obama, and that it was all good.

"I still can't believe Romney got close to 50% of the vote," one of my Australian colleagues complained.  "What is it with America?  Is there some law that says every election has to be close to 50%?  That you can be whatever kind of reactionary jerk you want to be, and you still get 50%?"

I responded that I thought most of the people voting for Romney weren't so much voting for Romney as they were voting against Obama.  I said that at any given time in America there were probably about 50% of the population who didn't like the president, and I thought that was healthy.

And about Obama?

There's no denying he's been a huge disappointment for progressives, especially given the gap between what he promised and what he actually delivered.  But, as always in American politics, you need to chose the lesser of two evils.
It's not really entirely rational to believe that his second term will be any better than his first.  But then, optimism by definition is not rational.  So, I chose to be cautiously optimistic that perhaps this term will actually see some improvement.  Time will tell the result.

Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky on How Progressives Should Approach Election 2012