Italy on the Election
Well, the election is over, and I lost — to Nader. Exit polls are revealing some very raw data that my write-in campaign wasn’t as effective as I had hoped. I’m ready to concede without dragging through torment those four precious people I want to take in my arms and hug. Yet I wonder if I missed something — something big — that wouldn’t allow me to connect with the other 3 voters I needed to beat Nader. I’ll have to set my hopes higher for ‘08. 
I took Reilly for ice cream on election night. The difference in time zones meant that election coverage didn’t start until 12:30 a.m. and ended around 8:30 a.m. As we pulled up and parked, the car in front of us had a “Kerry-Edwards” bumper sticker on it. That’s the first sticker or banner we’ve seen. This is one privilege of living overseas. I quickly checked to see if the car belonged to a military member but it was owned by a local Italian which equally surprised me.
It’s a good thing that the States are united or the Kerry campaign would’ve picked up the overwhelming European vote. The Europeans are born and bred in socialistic liberalism. They’re fed it in humanistic schools and communally fearful of strong leadership. The group opinion goes a long way here and usually ends up at the lowest common denominator. They’re also fed a continuous, liberal media line from America. They love CNN and have never heard of Fox News. Fahrenheit 911 was a huge hit across Europe while the Passion was deliberately and quickly forgotten. When Europe overwhelmingly supports an American candidate, America should run.
However, when I talk to local Italians and share with them that Kerry is pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, and pro-taxation their response is usually a shocked, “Really?!” They rarely, if ever, hear these things. Recently, at one luncheon with 10 Italians, only one of them had ever heard of partial-birth abortion and most didn’t even know what it was. As soon as I described how barbaric it is, they wondered why nobody had reported this. They repeatedly asked, “America has made that legal?”
National and local papers were fascinating reading as well. In Italy, there are something like 57 political parties compared to America’s dominant 2. And, while a number of US papers thinly veil their bias, Italy has long burned bias-veils. A number of them basically repeated the lines of the major US networks. This is becoming more and more common; almost like a global news network droning the same lines over and over. And yes, I’ve already read the Left Behind series (about 5 books into the series and lost interest leaving Buck in the tribulation - oh well). However, many papers were all-out insulting. One read, “Good Night America” with a darkened W grimace. Other European papers called Americans stupid and said that the rest of the world will suffer because of the ignorance of America. I doubt Israeli papers made any similar remarks.
But Europe and New York are bed-fellows. One “independent journalist” on NBC was asked why Bush was so successful. His answer was something like this, “George Bush was very successful at connecting with right-wing elements.” I yelled, “ELEMENTS! The whole country is red except for the little blue elements around major coastal cities.” I’d like to fight for the singular — one, big, red “element” in the middle. The journalist continued, “The inherent problem is that many Democrats and news media personnel do not live outside of the blue states. We don’t know what it’s like to own a pickup, own guns, and go to Nascar races.” Ya, those are our issues that we lined up to defend. I hope the journalist continues to think that way so that we can surprise him again in four years. It’s fun.
A number of Italians in our town have asked me if I’m happy over the election. I say, “Sure I am, but you know me to be happy for another Reason.” It’s so hard to say to these folks, “Politics aside” because politics is all they think about. As conservative, evangelical Baptists, we’re often travelling the road between novelty and anomaly in Europe.
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I just returned from a (tourist) trip to Great Britain, but found your latest entry very interesting. While there,I saw and heard a lot of the same things you wrote about concerning their outlook on our election, even though Britain is aligned with us in the war against terrorism. Lots of churches there, but the folk there definately need ministering to.
Comment by Ann Rees — 11/14/2004 @ 5:58 pm