Dispatch Number Seven
U.S. Muscle
Drives Brit Interest.
DATELINE:
Wednesday, November 15, 2000, at 1200 hours CDT.
Once More From the Top.
How I Decided The Election.
(American Voters Suck.)
By Mickey Miles
SPECIAL to CornDancer.com
EDITOR'S NOTE: Mr. Miles is a professional journalist and political operative who moved to London in summer, 2000, to explore a new line of endeavour.
Wow! I find it hard to believe, but for once my vote counted. "Counted" in the sense that because I didn't cast an absentee ballot, my refusal to vote makes a difference -- a big difference. I'll tell you the reasons why I didn't vote in a minute.
Here in the United Kingdom, the U.S. election has been prime news for months. The London daily papers have dispatched reporters, photographers, and columnists to travel with the candidates. The papers usually devote two full pages to the American contests -- and not just those races for president.
Why so much interest? The Europeans know what is at stake. Americans do not. At least the majority of Americans do not.
The European perspective is colored by two major wars and a few minor ones this century. They know that since the United States is the world's sole super power, for better or for worse, America dictates the world's agenda.
Need some troops in Bosnia? Sure, America will help. Need a policeman to help keep the peace in Jerusalem? Count on the Americans. They have the muscle to back up what they say.
Americans, however, are an insular people. They always have been. They do not travel much beyond their borders. Oh yes, maybe they do a two-week tour of Europe and a vacation in Mexico. Oh yes, Canada, but Canada doesn't really count as a foreign country, does it?
Gore: the Known Over the Unknown.
Press coverage of the American presidential race moved from the inside pages to the front pages as Election Day drew near. The editorials here favored Al Gore. Most of the people I have contact with favored Gore. It came down to his foreign policy experience and the fact that Bill Clinton is very popular over here. People here know Gore; they do not know Bush. They do not know if Bush plans to pull American troops out of Europe, write off Taiwan, embrace Yassir Arafat, deploy more theatre nuclear weapons to Europe, tell the North Koreans to go to hell, move more warships into the China Sea, etc.
It is not that Europeans think they know Gore personally, but they feel they can better understand his actions because they surmise that his actions would be based on what Clinton has done. In short, they find security in continuity. They favour the known over the unknown.
Ask an American who Tony Blair is: "Isn't he an actor?" "Is that Linda Blair's father?" Americans do not know and Americans do not care. You can see where I am going with this and you are starting to realize why I consciously have decided to stop voting.
100 Billion Dollars Inspires No Small Interest.
Even today, Saturday, Nov. 11, the Times of London has a full-page editorial about the American election. To say they are interested is a vast understatement. They are having a field day speculating on the election results. It is said that the people of Great Britain have 100 billion dollars invested in the U.S. stock market and since markets have uncertainty, well…. You can see they are worried.
So why am I singularly involved? Why am I, college educated and schooled in the ways of the world, so apathetic?
You might say: "You are part of the problem."
That is correct.
"You are just like those millions of good ole boys who don't vote and sneer at those who do."
Again correct.
We Vote with Our Feet.
When those absentee ballots arrive home and are counted -- even though I am not a Floridian and my vote, had it been cast, would not have, in any case, been in the bunch now at the center of attention -- think of me and the millions whose votes don't count because we vote with our feet.
Here's why I don't vote.
Some background, least you think I don't know politics. I have run winning campaigns for statewide office and I have worked in campaigns for national office. If you decided to run for office and you hired me and I agreed to work for you, we would stand a good chance of winning. I turn down losers and folks with no money. I would not run a campaign for someone I didn't believe in. But let me say this, I like to win. I cannot abide a loser.
Politicians are in the business of winning and therefore they must make compromises. If you have no money, cut a deal with organized labor, minority groups, business groups, what have you. The promise is they will give you money, manpower, money, organization, money, poll workers, etc.
No Help from the Man in the Street.
One thing you will not get is help from the man in the street, the ordinary blokes. They won't give you money, help, or even the time of day. They don't care if you are veteran, bright, solid, have good ideas. They just don't care.
My point is: I have been there. I have worked in campaigns. I have been in the system. Being there has taught me that no one in America will do the right thing. They cannot get elected if they did, or if they told the American people what they actually were going to do.
That is why I no longer vote. I just want to be left alone. Some day I may get involved in the system again, but right now, no way. American voters suck. I want no part of things that suck.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
WATCH FOR DISPATCH NUMBER EIGHT
in your mailbox on Wednesday, November 22, 2000.
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