ISLS Travel Stories

I spent the 1996 presidential election living in Costa Rica, so I have seen what a presidential election looks like from the outside. This year we are living in Spain, but it also feels like we are living in the UK. There is such a large population of Brits that live in southern Spain that is just as likely that you are going to talk to someone in English as you are in Spanish. Plus, our two English language television channels are news channels; CNN International and Sky News. Both of which are mostly broadcast from London.

The most significant difference between this time and last is that there are so few American living here. In San Jose, Costa Rica there were well over 50,000 of us living in the area and twice that in the rest of the country. As I said in another blog, even the Americans Club here is mostly British. In 96’ I was discussing the situation in the election with fellow Americans. Many of those conversations were very heated and the majority of people were Republican leaning due to the large number of ex-military retirees. Most thought Clinton was a draft dodging, woman chasing, pot smoker. This always struck me as funny as the only difference between these expats and Clinton was the draft dodging part.

Here, we are talking to non Americans who are curious what we think will happen tomorrow. Europeans tend to be much more liberal and yes, socialistic than we do. They cannot understand why we elected George Bush twice. Heck, they don’t understand how he won the first time, while loosing the popular vote. That is a fun one to explain, let me tell you. No one anywhere outside the US has an Electoral College system for electing their leaders, so it is a completely foreign concept.

By a large margin people here hope that Obama gets elected. It is not that they don’t like McCain, per se, they just really hate Bush. Even people who would normally be more receptive to McCain and the Republican candidate can’t bring themselves to root for him. It is a mater of respect for a lot of them. They see Bush and the Republicans as essentially going ‘Rogue’ over the last eight years no mater what their supposed allies thought or wanted. Iraq is just one of the thorns in their sides. Rumsfeld’s ‘Old Europe’ and ‘Freedom Fries’ are some other examples.

I seem to be more obsessed with this election than I remember being in Costa Rica. I search on line to major US news sites to glean any and all information about the polls and the mood of the electorate. The time difference is also a factor. We are 6 hours ahead of East Coast Time and so when we get up at 8 or so, it is only 2am in New York. So, we don’t get any new news until the evening, which is the lat morning in the US. This kind of creates a disconnect with what is going on over there as we get our news out of phase.

There are no parties planned for the election returns as the polls on the east coast will not close until after 2am our time. I don’t know if I will stay up all night watching or go to bed and try and get up early. It will probably be the former as I am a night owl anyway. I may go to a bar to watch the first ones come through as they are open until 3 and 4 am over here, even on a Tuesday night.

Get out there and vote! Everyone counts. God bless America.