Watching the returns from Europe turns out to be a lot like watching from home: a fairly agonizing process, made all the more surreal by the late hour (it’s 2:30 am here as I write this).  All the swirls of blue and red and Wolf Blitzer carnival-barking look even more garish and insane than usual.

Florida is worrying.  An early CNN map showed the number of counties in which Bush or Kerry have won an increased percentage of the vote over 2000, and almost all were more pro-Bush.  That seems funky on its face, given the polling consensus of a narrow Kerry lead.  It’s entirely possible that Florida is simply more polarized than four years ago, and when Dade and Broward come in they’ll be more strongly pro-Kerry, but the touch-screen nightmares are disconcerting.

One big-picture note of some hope: a couple of months ago, the thought of election-day violence, either terrorism or poll-station thuggery, didn’t seem all that unreasonable.  Now it does.  That’s a good thing.

I’m finding C-SPAN’s map and the Kos diaries useful if you’re looking to busy yourself online.  For me, more caffeine… it’s gonna be a long, long night.

Watching the returns from Europe turns out to be a lot like watching from home: a fairly agonizing process, made all the more surreal by the late hour (it’s 2:30 am here as I write this).  All the swirls of blue and red and Wolf Blitzer carnival-barking look even more garish and insane than usual.

Florida is worrying.  An early CNN map showed the number of counties in which Bush or Kerry have won an increased percentage of the vote over 2000, and almost all were more pro-Bush.  That seems funky on its face, given the polling consensus of a narrow Kerry lead.  It’s entirely possible that Florida is simply more polarized than four years ago, and when Dade and Broward come in they’ll be more strongly pro-Kerry, but the touch-screen nightmares are disconcerting.

One big-picture note of some hope: a couple of months ago, the thought of election-day violence, either terrorism or poll-station thuggery, didn’t seem all that unreasonable.  Now it does.  That’s a good thing.

I’m finding C-SPAN’s map and the Kos diaries useful if you’re looking to busy yourself online.  For me, more caffeine… it’s gonna be a long, long night.

More from the UK… letting the Supreme Court thing move down now that I’m certain I’ve made my point…

Every TV I’ve seen in a public space here has been tuned to news channels, awaiting word from the States.  Every single one.  In rest area on the M40 highway.  In a pub during lunch.  In storefronts.  Everywhere.

And I promise you this is true: everyone I have met — everyone — is rooting for Kerry to win.  (Or, at least, for Bush to lose.  More that, in honesty.)

One conversation said it all: talking with a lovely woman named Shelley (name changed, privacy respected), about 60, just moving to Oxfordshire to live with her daughter.  Reserved at first, but quite friendly after a few minutes of chat about the misty weather.  She learns I’m an American.  Before I express any opinion at all, these words pour forth, no hesitation, as natural as commenting on the damp air: "Fuck all if the bastard wins.  Fuck all." 

Shelley catches her language.  Not the sort of thing a grandmother from Devon normally says.  A small smile.  My friend Jovanka catches up.  We chat about politics a bit more, a bit less coarsely.  We smile and go on with our days.

She didn’t have to specify who she meant by "the bastard."  Nor did she feel the need.  Obvious.  Implicit.  The world knows who "the bastard" is.

But do Americans?  I suppose we’re all about to find out.

More from the UK… letting the Supreme Court thing move down now that I’m certain I’ve made my point…

Every TV I’ve seen in a public space here has been tuned to news channels, awaiting word from the States.  Every single one.  In rest area on the M40 highway.  In a pub during lunch.  In storefronts.  Everywhere.

And I promise you this is true: everyone I have met — everyone — is rooting for Kerry to win.  (Or, at least, for Bush to lose.  More that, in honesty.)

One conversation said it all: talking with a lovely woman named Shelley (name changed, privacy respected), about 60, just moving to Oxfordshire to live with her daughter.  Reserved at first, but quite friendly after a few minutes of chat about the misty weather.  She learns I’m an American.  Before I express any opinion at all, these words pour forth, no hesitation, as natural as commenting on the damp air: "Fuck all if the bastard wins.  Fuck all." 

Shelley catches her language.  Not the sort of thing a grandmother from Devon normally says.  A small smile.  My friend Jovanka catches up.  We chat about politics a bit more, a bit less coarsely.  We smile and go on with our days.

She didn’t have to specify who she meant by "the bastard."  Nor did she feel the need.  Obvious.  Implicit.  The world knows who "the bastard" is.

But do Americans?  I suppose we’re all about to find out.

Thanks to the miracle of absentee ballots, I’ll be viewing the returns from here in the UK, where my friends Jovanka and Jonathan have been kind enough to stash me for a while.

Last night, I once again saw America through different eyes, this time through a Channel Four documentary on America’s crazed political system and its activists.  The contents were nothing startling to anyone paying attention, but the program’s manner was striking: the presenter, a passionate gent named Peter Oborne, had the actual liberty to say obvious things out loud, calling the sham televised campaign events and hand-picked shills in attendance precisely what they were — fake — to a degree unthinkable in American "news" programming.

I could give a dozen details, but here’s the basic difference: David Copperfield pretends to levitate his assistant.  Wolf Blitzer shows up and breathlessly asks him how long he plans to continue.  Larry King asks him how it feels to levitate someone.  Rush Limbaugh spins the act of levitation to favor Bush, while pretending not to.  Bill O’Reilly does the same, while grabbing the assistant’s ass.  Democrats spend more energy trying to feign levitation than presenting a viable alternative to make-believe.

And then comes the British reporter, pointing out the obvious, that nobody’s really flying.  Which is obvious to anyone who isn’t part of the groupthink, which is to say, the entire world.

The Americans ignore the unwelcome visitor, and then complain: why can’t everyone else see the magic?

And that’s what it looks like from America’s strongest ally.

We have a long way to go.  But the first step is removing the biggest trickster from center stage.