Morning and ignoring from the US of A
Election morning in America, and people are excited. Calendars have long been marked. Parties have been organised. Festivals are underway. There is even talk of roasting whole animals, in the street. For sure, Cinco de Mayo - the Mexican festival of independence - is a big deal on this side of the pond.
The British Election, on the other hand, is passing largely unremarked. You’d be forgiven for thinking that most Americans ignore any politics outside their own country. And you’d be right. But later on tonight Cinco de Mayo makes way for May the Fifth in at least one corner of the eastern seaboard. At 6pm some 200-odd people, as 200 people – certainly odd in the sense of being mostly forlorn ex-pat brits seeking election related conversation and a glimpse of the swingometer, gather in Harvard’s John F Kennedy School of Government to watch Peter Snow et al on the big screen. If anything interesting happens – animal roasting apart – I’ll post it here.
May 6th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
I ran into two English expats today, the day after the election, and was surprised at the reaction I got when I asked them what they thought of the results. The first, a man in his 50’s, didn’t even know that there was an election. Imagine that. The second, a young woman in her 20’s, replied that she “didn’t go for that sort of thing.”
I was more than a little amazed that I knew way more about the election and it’s issues than either of the two expats I talked to. Noticing today that 4 in 10 Brits didn’t vote it’s made me rethink my impression that Brits care more and pay closer attention to politics than we Yanks do. I’m not sure I buy that assumption anymore.
I don’t know where you are but here in Raleigh, NC the talk radio programs had several shows and segments on the voting in the UK. The local NPR station, WUNC, carried the BBC World Service’s election coverage all night. Perhaps we’re not as clueless as is assumed after all.