Super Ash Wednesday

I was just in the car coming back from the store and I was listening to NPR (when am I not?) and they had these three foreign journalists based in Washington D.C. talking about the current primary season and American political scene and how it was viewed by their readers back home. They were from Germany, France, and Poland.

German guy was great. Question was: "How do your readers back home feel about the possibility of a female President with Hillary Clinton? Does that intrigue them or have special significance to them?"

German Guy: "Vell, not really. Two years ago, vee elected a voman Kanzler and Great Britain did many years ago. Zo...zat does not affect us zat much. Man...voman...makes no difference. She can still be a strong leader, and vee do not expect to see her crying on television every 4 weeks."

Oh...I had a good laugh at that one. Those crazy Germans. Lump in Gov. Schwarzenegger in there as well after his mini-press conference yesterday in Cali about his and Maria's differing political viewpoints. He finished with a joke about how when he took his marriage vows and promised to be with her through sickness and health, her Democratic leaning was her sickness. The guy gives phenomenal lines even when he's not in a Jim Cameron movie. I'm up for amending the Constitution.

But listening to that interview on the radio gave me some perspective. All three of these foreign journalists talked about how no one overseas understands when Americans --voters and candidates both -- talk about how Washington is broken and the political system needs change and a break from corruption and special interests. They went on about how our system is perceived as the "perfect" model of democratic government and how it's been so incredibly stable for some 200 years. They couldn't understand why we seemed to need so much political change and upheaval.

It was just so refreshing and vindicating to hear these intelligent political writers describing our government as so great, so well-oiled, and so transparent to members of the media. I thought about it a minute and considered goverments in places like Italy and Kenya where there have been major issues recently and I just felt really lucky and extremely proud. No one here was running around with machetes and torches when Obama suggested that he may have won more delegates than Billary this morning. And our legislators don't get into fistfights and throw shoes like they do in Italy and Japan when people disagree. At least not anymore...I think.

But I did my civic duty yesterday. I voted for McCain in the Republican primary even though I support Barack for the whole shebang. Unlike Georgia, we in Mass. aren't able to choose which ballot to vote on the day of and I just couldn't bring myself to change my registration to Democrat, even for one election. I figured Mr. McCain would need my vote more anyhow, with Romney not too long removed from the Governor's post here. Needless to say, I wasn't the deciding vote by a long shot. I was also bummed that the Massholes couldn't rally for a win for Obama. That kind of surprised me; I figured the Kennedy/Obama lovefest would have helped swing it to him but I suppose I overestimated the influence of two of America's suckiest senators.

I was feeling a bit glum after last night and when I woke up this morning and saw California results in Hillary's favor, but after many hours of work listening to political analysis and really devouring the numbers I have regained confidence and feel good about the chances of YES WE CAN. But just in case, I said a little prayer to Jesus in Mass this morning to help me reject sin and to help America reject Hillary during this Lenten season. So we should be covered there.