One of the advantages of living overseas is that I’ve managed to miss every US election since 1992. (Well, with one mid-term election in 1994 as an exception.)

I’ve voted in most of the Presidential elections since I turned 18, although I don’t have the fetish for voting that a lot of people do. If you don’t like anyone running, what is the point of voting except religious ritual or a twisted electoral version of Saw? (Here are your choices: You can vote to be torn apart by wolves or picked apart by crows. If you don’t vote, you can’t complain about which one tears you apart. Make your choice.)

One of the things I like about being overseas during US elections is the merciful lack of advertising–both official and disguised as “news”. I’ve not seen any attack ads and I don’t get any spin from talk shows. Instead I get raw data from lots of sources and then get to sit back and wonder why anyone ever thought Wendy Davis was viable as anything other than shoe sales and why anyone thinks the fat guy from New Jersey is a Republican.

It has also been interesting to see the “Wow He’s So Cool!” attitude toward the current US President fade in Japan. I’m no longer asked “How much do you like Obama?” and then have to say “A pox on both their houses” and then have to explain what pox and which houses and who they are.

I do, on occasion, especially during Presidential elections, find myself explaining the difference between parliamentary systems and the US system and the difference between first-past-the-post elections versus proportional systems and having set elections versus “Hey, everyone/no one likes me! Let’s have an election RIGHT NOW.”

I also have to explain that money will not be removed from US politics so long as newspapers, radio and television get most of the advertising money that’s spent.

On occasion, though, I have to impose a cone-of-silence in which I refuse to discuss politics, especially at work. Talking/arguing about such thing is not something I normally like to do at work, but I once had a colleague from a Country That’s Not the USA (not a real place) with anti-Sarah Palin derangement syndrome. He had it so bad and came across as so smug that I actually found myself defending her even though, well, see “wolves” versus “crows” choice above.

Now I wait for the next Japanese election. Those involve vans with speakers and women with gloves. It only lasts 90 days or so, but those vans make them seem longer.