Incredibly, after more than 500 days of campaigning, it looks like the race is over and Barack Obama is the chosen one for the Democratic party. Personally I think it’s a shame to see either one lose, given that the electorate has paid much more attention to this clash of the titans than they probably will to the presidential election itself. Interest-wise, it’s kind of like following the season-ending edge-of-the-seat cliffhanging finale of ‘Lost’ or ‘24’ (or – shudder – even ‘American Idol’) with a four year old episode of ‘When Chihuahuas Attack’.
The process of selecting a figurehead for the party is about three times as long a procedure as the presidential campaign. It’s also in direct contrast to the UK major party system, which sees a new leader chosen in less than two months through the combined vote of elected MPs and the party membership. Barack Obama’s campaign has so far cost more than $130 million, while a leadership campaign in the UK generally costs less than $500,000. I appreciate that this country’s bigger, and the system’s different, but nothing has to stay the same forever folks. As I believe somebody may have said, it’s time for change.
Interestingly, the Obama campaign spent $738 on bagels from Einstein Bros, while the Clinton campaign laid down a mighty $2493 with the same supplier. Clearly when the going gets tough, the tough get bagels.
So now we enter five months of back-and-forth between McCain and Obama as they battle for the right to clear up the mess created by the least popular politician on the world stage in living memory. As soon as the whole affair’s over, it’ll be time to start up the Obama 2012 re-election/’I promise I won’t f**k it up this time’ campaign.
Clearly, I am one of the disenfranchised many (no taxation without representation, my arseass) and so I have no say in what happens on November 4. It’s probably for the good of the nation that I don’t have a vote in any case, as there’s only one issue that I want to hear the candidates’ view on. And since neither of them currently seem willing to announce that they’re going to outlaw peanut butter, I guess I’m going to have to keep on waiting.
Tough on peanut butter, tough on the causes of peanut butter. Unite behind me, America.
1:29 pm
I am prepared to ban the abomination that is smooth peanut butter, as long as maximum strength crunchy is still available on prescription.
1:33 pm
Sorry, got preoccupied with peanut butter and forgot my main point. Why do you think the race is over? Hillary is still in the race!
A majority of delegates pledged to Obama is not the kind of distraction that will get her to quit.
http://potatopotarto.blogspot.com/2008/06/she-cant-be-bargained-with-she-cant-be.html
1:42 pm
Mr Potarto - I appreciate your political expediency and willingness to negotiate in order to conclude a deal. But I’m afraid I take a hard line, zero tolerance approach here. It’s the only way they’ll learn.
1:47 pm
Hi. I found you via Britgalusa. I think you are making an assumption in the the country will unify behind Obama. This election is still up in the air right now. And, I feel rather disenfranchised myself. Neither candidate is one I like or could believe in for anything, especially running my country.
1:54 pm
Dylan:
At least peanut butter has some identifiable relationship to a product grown in the soil of Mother Earth.
But Marmite (and its antipodian twin Vegemite)? Is it animal, vegetable, mineral, or some nether material from another solar system entirely?
3:08 pm
Brooklyn,
I’m going with nether material. Marmite is like licking a moon rock dipped in sulfur!
Long live peanut butter!
4:56 pm
Melanie:
A guidebook to Australia decribed Vegemite as follows, as I remember it:
Vegemite looks like axle grease. But it tastes like salty axle grease.
5:11 pm
Silly ex-colonials !
Marmite - from the French “Marmite” meaning a cauldron - is what is left over in the bottom of a cauldron (as in the scene in Macbeth) after a particularly noxious potion has been left simmering for 3 decades or more and has deliquesced into its component sub-atomic particles !
5:14 pm
Personally, I would have liked Hilary to win as I would like to see a woman President. Mind you, having said that, a lot of people in the UK thought it would be good to have a woman PM (not me, I hasten to add) when Maggie Thatcher got elected, and look what happened there.
Perhaps it’s as well I have no say in the matter.
Also, if memory serves, I think Dylan has already said he doesn’t like marmite so what has that got to do with the peanut butter issue. Horrible stuff PB, all clarty and sticking to the roof of your mouth. (yuk)
I’ll get me coat.
5:22 pm
Good memory Jan - I can’t stick the stuff. I’ll be blocking the IP addresses of the pro-Marmite camp on here…
7:36 pm
Dylan:
OK so you don’t like Marmite.
I was just referring to the fact that there’s no accounting for (national) taste.
But you wanted to ban peanut butter by alw within the United States. Look, we tried prohibition of alcohol here, and it was a disaster, and prohibition of drugs isn’t working out too well either.
BTW, is your vote in Parliamentary elections
based on each party’s Marmite prohibition plank?
7:37 pm
D’oh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
alw = law
3:14 am
I could live on peanut butter, even more so than bread! Crunchy peanut butter, just give me the tub and a spoon and I’ll be set
I hate marmite, but I love bovril, spread on a ham sandwich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril
11:11 am
Karen - I had such high opinions of you before the Bovril revelation. Don’t get me wrong, I love bovril, but it’s a beef extract drink to be imbibed on cold days (especially at football grounds in my experience) not a spread to be placed on a ham butty!
Brooklyn - I’ve been lobbying for a tougher stance on Marmite for years, but to no avail…
Jan - thanks for using the phrase ‘clarty’…couldn’t agree more!
And welcome Anglophile - shame you’ve got your football codes mixed up though! But if the Republicans are re-elected, can you make sure that the last person to leave America turns the lights off as they go?
2:01 pm
Agh - I can’t believe I’m seeing someone use the word “clarty”. I had to give that one up when I moved south, never mind when I came over to the US of A. Fabulous.
BTW - since I’m a dual citizen (ie. I have two heads) I can use my vote to represent the entire Brit expat community here. As long as you agree with me!
7:36 am
Sorry to disappoint Dylan
I have had the drink too, years and years ago, but when we lived in the UK, we ate it a lot on sandwiches and toast mmm
1:43 pm
[...] egregious of all, as I have indicated before, is the American obsession with putting peanut butter on sandwiches. Peanut butter is neither big [...]