This election

I had dinner with a British friend last night, who was confused about why American presidential candidates go on Saturday Night Live and make jokes at their own expense. "I want the person running my country to be *serious*," she objected. Apparently, if you believe her, people in the UK don't care about Gordon Brown's pastor, his friends, his wife's friends, or anything except Labour's policy agenda. It can't possibly be that perfect, but our system is pretty ridiculous.

Electoral politics in the US is a television show. Pure and simple. And if you don't believe me, go to thisfuckingelection.com and see how many of the tropes of this election cycle you remember like they were yesterday. Minor characters popped in and out of the plot, inside jokes and cultural references were created. The Office gave us 'that's what she said', Campaign '08 gave us Secret Muslins, flag pins, Real Americans, and so much more.

But, like the best of television, this show can really make you believe in what can seem like an alternate reality. Watching Heroes, you almost believe that there might be people who can fly and walk through walls. Watching the election unfold, you can almost believe that politics is actually going to change, that we will stop talking past each other and at least be able to have a civil, respectful debate about important questions of policy. At the very least, we will have a President who believes in this kind of politics and is trying his hardest to convince even those farthest away from him politically that common ground exists.

There are plenty of signs to the contrary-- the fear campaign run by the McCain-Palin ticket, the vitriol hurled by the fringes of both sides on the internet. But there are lots of people out there who have put an incredible amount of effort over the past two years into electing Barack Obama. And if we can keep this spirit alive for the actual tenure of an Obama administration, a lot of the promise is self-fulfilling. We've already proved we can organize, get to know our neighbors, inspire millions to donate money and time towards a worthy cause. If that money and time now turns to volunteering in schools, organizing communities against poverty and for energy conservation, imagine the results.

Reality may insist on presenting a different picture next week or next month. But today, I'm nothing but excited and hopeful.

As a coda, today's Hindu, one of the local English-language newspapers, prints an article that compares a woman running to be the first Dalit (member of India's untouchable caste) Prime Minister of India to Obama. Is India ready to take the leap that, the paper implies, America has taken by electing a black President? On the opposite page, an editorial lays it out in plain terms. "...The remarkable thing about the contest itself is that a member of the biggest single minority and the single most downtrodden group in the US is the hot favourite to for the most powerful political office in the world. In a society savagely divided by wealth, by ethnicity, and above all by the hideous legacy of slavery, all the battles for rights, all the oppression and suffering, have culminated in a triumph for the rights enshrined in the Constitution, confirmed by the Supreme Court, and given substance by Presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson... Barack Obama's position as the leading candidate for the presidency is a mighty achievement for the American republic."