Political Matters

I’ve been surprised by how closely the Danes pay attention to American politics. In many cases they are more on top of things than even myself, the PoliSci undergrad and masters degree holder who specialized political communication.

My most recent conversation with a native Dane on American politics happened just shortly after James’ birth in the delivery room. A nurse asked where we were from and, after finding out that we were from the States, wanted to know which state we were from and which candidate we were planning to vote for in the primaries. I explained how the state we currently reside in didn’t get on board the “Let Move Up Our Primary So We’ll MATTER” train so by the time May rolls around I fully expect the McCain v. Obama showdown to be set in stone.

The nurse persisted and wanted to know exactly what we thought of Hillary, McCain, Obama and company, and I gave her a couple of ill-formed impressions of their leadership abilities, how I expected their administrations would affect our foreign policy, et cetera, based far too heavily on the few episodes of The A Daily Show we pick up here. It’s hard to imagine Americans caring so much about any other country’s political elections.

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And off topic: let’s here it for Michael who today completed the first full draft of his dissertation! Editing his final chapter was one of the last things I did before going into labor (and it wasn’t my best work given that I missed a reference to “Knight of Infinite Regression”). And given the challenges that life with a newborn and 19-month-old offer, his meeting his goal to complete a full draft by the end of February is especially noteworthy.