Too Close, Too Cool

I struggled to find a suitably Savagian title for today's blog, which is very much the morning after the night before. Not that I have been indulging in strong drink, you understand, but I did feel it an amusing diversion to buy a bottle of Marks and Spencers US-Style beer (brewed in the EU- bizarre!) to enjoy while awaiting the outcome of what Blogger calls NaPreVoDa. This is, of course, their rather silly Russian-sounding acronym for "National Presidential Voting Day", 2nd November 2004.

Like it or loathe it, you cannot ignore an American presidential election. Yet I'm sure that the British media seem to have been taking more of an interest in this contest and its final outcome than they have in earlier ones. Could it be that we are subtly becoming the 51st state, the one with no electoral votes? God help us all if we are, but I do hope that God's hand is on the final winner of this contest which seems to have been going on forever.

Certainly for most Americans, it's a tacit assumption that their nation is guided not by the divine dollar-as often seems the case- but by the God of Gods. So inherent in the national psyche is this assumption of God's existence- a trait to be admired and encouraged- that it is actually THE official motto of the USA, though suprisingly only supplanted "E Pluribus Unum" in the mid fifties of the twentieth century. More info on the history and background of the "Great Seal" of the United States at http://www.usscouts.org/flag/sealmotto.html

The American political process is seriously weird and yet oddly fascinating, like the nation itself. Rather than doze with Dimbleby or snooze with Snow last night on BBC ONE TV, I decided it would be a nice idea to take it from the top, as it were, with WTOP, a news radio station in Downtown Washington DC (www.wtop.com) What a marvellous world-shrinker the web is to enable me to do this! I listened for a few minutes to their mid-evening coverage before tiredness got the better of me in our wee small hours. I returned to the more familiar cultural style of BBC Radio5 Live, and the comforting and familiar Scots tones of Naughty James- Jim Naughtie of the BBC's Today radio show sent me off into the land of nod but the land of the free pervaded my light sleep as the "projected" results started to come in.

The dawn's early light brought the news that George Dubya seems set for another four years in the White House, much to my personal disappointment. I decided it was time to forsake the analysis and speculation of Messrs Humphries and Naughtie though and returned to WTOP, surprisingly still there on the cordless speaker as I had expected the PC to crash at some point during the night. It's a wonder drivers in WTOP's catchment area don't collide though, if they try to concentrate on the motormouth pace of the information delivered on their chosen station. Broadband may be able to tell it like it is ever faster, but to take all this stuff in you need broadbrain!

Mind you, it was of course only 3.30 in the morning on the East coast when I tuned in. I presume even in the capital of the most powerful nation on Earth, there's not much traffic about at that time of the day, or am I wrong? It was Americans who invented 24/7 life, after all. Not necessarily a good thing. OK, someone has to keep the essential services running while the majority sleep, but surely mankind has managed to survive many millenia of civilisation without needing to buy a bagel or a bog roll in the middle of the night?

Which reminds me: whatever happened to 7-11? Somehow, I think they would have changed their name by now as I can't imagine many stores thriving on those hours alone now. I was reminded of the convenience store phenomenon last night, when on a whim I decided to do a Google on "Fort Myers Beach", the lovely Gulf destination I holidayed with my family in back in Septemember of 82. FMB, on Estero Island, was I believe badly hit by Hurricane Charley in late summer, but it's re-assuring to see that the "Sandpiper Gulf Resort" seems to have escaped unscathed. Judging from the website, it is much the same as it was when we visited it two decades ago, which is suprising. Been there, seen that, got the T-Shirt. Er well I have, actually. Still.

(BACK) ON THE RADIO
One of the most fun things about listening to any international commercial radio service, but particularly US stations, is the strange range of adverts they carry. In a few seconds of sound byte, a whole cultural education programme could be delivered to would be migrants seeking a green card. Want to remember ex-servicemen and women, or veterans as they are increasingly being called even in the UK? Well in the US you don't need to wear your poppy with pride, as millions of Britons will be doing for the next twelve days or so. Instead, why not give make the ultimate sacrifice and let them have one of your gas guzzlers?
Yes, really! Seems the latest American charity wheeze is for folk to give their car to some good cause, either a veteran's charity or one for special needs, to quote just two examples I heard this morning. Can't quite see it spreading to Britain, somehow, though it might appeal to the good Christian souls of Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, who apparently have the highest proportion of two-car ownership in the UK and also one of the most evangelical Anglican congregations.

BEATING ABOUT THE G W BUSH
Coming back to my title brings me back to what must be the most maddening cliche of the last eighteen hours or so of media blasting from across the pond. Even the venerable Wogan himself made reference to it before Pause for Thought this morning. Where on earth did "Too Close to Call" come from? I've been unable to find any suitably succinct web definition of its derivation, so if you have the answer, do let me know please! As far as I can gather, though, it has something to do with the prevailing trust not in the good old "returning officer" as it would be here in Blighty, but in the manic efforts of CBS, MSNBC and ABC (not to mention 21st Century Fox, CNN etc etc) to be the first to bring the final election results to a salivating audience. It makes the efforts of Basildon or Basingstoke to get the first declarations out fairly tame by comparison!

What a strange manifestation of democracy this media madness is. As the future not just of the US but of the free world hangs not on a chad but the Buck-eyed state (eh?) of Ohio, where "provisional results" cannot be released for eleven days (why, in the name of sanity?) isn't it about time we stop all this "will he, won't he" over the result? Meanwhile, senator Kerry can go back, sadly, to doing his stand-ins for Herman Munster (as one wag described him this morning) and the presenters on WTOP can stop mistaking him for Kennedy, even if he does bare a striking similarity to the last Catholic Democrat for president. But look what tragically happened to him. Maybe he's better off back in Boston.

Finally, my mind thinks back to the thrill of an earlier election, to 1992, when William Jefferson Clinton (hopeful parents must have named him!) stopped selling over-priced greeting cards (joke!) and became the answer to life, the US and everything as president number 42! BBC Radio Sussex, where I was then happily working, took a very keen interest in this contest, especially since they had a "special correspondent" in Iowa who came free of charge. He was my good mate Andrew, then a BBC engineer visiting relatives in Iowa, but was somewhat phased when mid-morning presenter Julian Clegg, using the trans-Atlantic link I had just set up, asked him "So it's too close to call"? Well, wouldn't you be a bit slow on the uptake if you'd been got up from your bed at 5 a.m in sleepy Des Moines? Ah, Bill Bryson where are you now?