Politics & The Presidential Election

USA Election 2012

So it's been 3 years since I moved here, and now it's 4 years since the last President was elected... this of course means politics FEVER.

I'll be honest, I'm not big on politics. Never have been. But I do sometimes like to have a political discussion/debate about about why I think someone is a moron, or why someone's policies don't make sense and such things like that (just recently such a discussion became heated... which is odd because I don't really care THAT much). But I honestly can't remember a political race being so... everywhere. Debates, yard signs, adverts (and LOTS of them), newspaper articles, and conversations about policies and all that. It's quite a sight to behold. In fact I listen to an internet radio station called Pandora and every now and then it has an ad (helps fun the free music listening) and there's political ads there. And YouTube, sometimes they had ads at the start of videos there, all Obama ads so far.. getting old quick.

This is what the yard signs are like

The thing about Australian voting (for those that don't know) is that it is mandatory once you hit 18 years of age. You need to keep your address up-to-date (and when moving like Uni students do you'll often receive something in the mail telling you to register with this new address... which I ignored a couple of times... foolishly). If you don't vote you will receive a fine. This is for state and federal elections as well.

When I turned 18 it was a voting year and I believe voting was the following month, if not a few weeks following my birthday. I'd never been interested in voting before so I had NO idea about the process, who to vote for, their policies and all that stuff. Luckily I was still in High School and mum explained it to me (except that I could do a dummy vote.. which would probably have been better for me than what I DID do :P)

Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney

Voting in American elections is not mandatory (huzzah!) but I couldn't vote this year if I wanted to anyway. One of the limitations of being a Legal Permanent Resident as opposed to a Citizen is that I can't vote, or be on jury's for that matter.

For those that don't know (who obviously live under a rock... can I move in please?) there are 2 political "teams", Republican (Romney) and Democrat (Obama) which are also broken up into colours too, Red for Republican, and Blue for Democratic. If you read an article about different politicians you'll sometimes see the first letter of their political party in brackets after their name (I was confused at first :P)

BUT it's not just the Presidential Elections either, it's the General Election at the moment too. I drive for about 45 mins to get to work and have seen yard signs for all sorts of elected official positions; such as County Recorder, County Circuit clerk, Judges (Supreme, Circuit etc), County board, Sheriff... I don't really see any ads for those... could be because I don't get the local paper (have been thinking about it.. requires me to sign up = effort to find the place to do it) but I know they're around because I keep seeing yard signs. Haven't heard of half the people going up for the election so just like in Australia, I'd be pretty dang useless if I COULD vote anyway :P


**Note: Thank you for being so patient for my latest blog. With my mum being in town in August I didn't have time and then I returned to Australia for 2 weeks in September due to the tragic loss of my father.