Election Night!!

It is finally here - the night that the world has all been waiting for. Unfortunately we here in Paris will have to wait for tomorrow morning to know how this 2 year saga will end. We're going to an election night party anyway - should be fun. We are going to have an American potluck dinner - I'm bringing BBQ chicken. Its BBQ because of the sauce - very exotic in these parts (what??? You mean you combine ketchup and mustard and honey and slop it over chicken and eat it with your fingers???? - Mon Dieu!) I have to cook it in the oven because it is very hard to grill in a 5th floor apartment. There will probably be other strange delicacies for my very French boyfriend to try like chocolate chip cookies and corn on the cob (good luck to the person assigned this - corn is for cows in this part of the world). I am pretty sure that we will be washing it all down with good french wine though - one can only go so far with the "theme" food thing.

I have to say that for the most part I am enjoying being an "ex-pat" over here watching all the goings on in my country from this distance. France and the rest of Europe for that matter are all solidly behind Obama. In fact, I have not met a single person over here - American or otherwise - that is supporting McCain. Having been raised rabidly republican for my whole life, I have the sense of being from an alien planet. Discussions and conversations every where here land back to the American Election given enough time. It doesn't matter if I am sitting in my French Conversation group, Book Group or in line at the Boucherie waiting for my carre' d'agneau to be prepare' - the conversation turns sooner or later to Obama the savior and that stupid man McCain who is supported by all of those idiots in the republican party. I have to admit that it sticks in my craw. My whole family is republican except for my airline pilot brother who belongs to an union. In the old days (back when I was young - yes that long ago) republicans were not synonymous with the Christian Right, Creationism, Prayer in Schools and Joe the Plumber. But no one today remembers any of that apparently. Strange because I am pretty sure that I am not the oldest living American in Paris. So today, I began to feel sort of lonely. This in spite of the fact that even I am not sure that I am for McCain either. I am sort of afraid for the backlash from everyone in the rest of the world if Obama doesn't in fact win. I hate the idea that it will be assumed that he lost because Americans are fundamentally racist at heart. It is so not true where I come from.

But it bugs the shit out of me that people look at me cross-eyed when I can't lie (I have always been terrible at lying) and admit that I am a republican and am considering BOTH candidates. I don't think that I have lost any friends over it  yet - I even like to think that I am changing the closed opinions of all of the supposedly open minded liberals in the world. Wow - a republican who isn't carrying around a bible replying "you betcha" to every question. Just think - I may be changing the face of the Republican party - one Parisian at a time!

Comments

[Carrie Dern]

I can't tell you how it warms my heart to hear how you've been feeling during this campaign! I've never felt do out of sync with the people around me, a republican, one of "those" people. Actually it is not an uncommon thing here in the Bay Area as you know, Mary. We actually may have lost some friends over this! And, I wasn't even so sure I was for McCain, either. What I do know is that Obama has made a very large number of promises and I only hope he can keep some of them. And, he has provided inspiration and passion to many in a time of great uncertainty, so...The bottom line is , he is my president now, too, and I wish him the best. Thanks for your thoughts!