American Elections: What if Our Buddy Loses ?

Things are clear in France: due to the strange political unanimity in which lies our secret power to cross frontiers, everybody agrees that our beloved Barack Obama shall triumph in November. By the way, we do not care at all about John McCain, that white-haired reactionary guy.

Nicolas Sarkozy has also given into the Obamania and over-emphasized his reaction to his success, back in July. In order to make the message even clearer, he went on and on again about meeting the Illinois senator in 2006 in Washington: “Both of us were in that office. One has become a president. So should the other.” We pretended to ignore how little he seemed to be interested in France. That day, at the Elysée, the French television journalists were explaining that if he was only to spend 4 hours in Paris -versus a night in London and a meeting in Berlin- it was not about France’s voice vanishing from the nations’ concert; it was simply a question of busy schedule. Of Course!

France had spoken: Barack Obama was our man and, from Saint-Jean-de-Luz to Saint-Germain-des-Près, there was no doubt he would win in November. Unless…

European desires are far from the American political reality

Don’t you remember the last election and… what’s his name? Ah, yes: John Kerry. He was on Courrier International’s front cover… and he spoke French! We even went to the point of mediatically and politically resurrecting his cousin Brice Lalonde* in order for him to tell us about their teen holidays together in Bretagne. Bam! George W. Bush got triumphantly re-elected.

It did not even seem necessary to recount the votes in Florida: Republicans had obliterated the Democrats. Few people in France actually wondered why our desires were so unlike America’s political realities.

Then came Barack Obama. He had it all: charisma, charm, and that “Yes we can” attitude which ridiculed both our own candidates’ “quiet break” and “Tomorrow together”. He’s a black, or mixed-race, we’re not sure. It’s not that important, anyway. He’s from an obvious minority and this matters here where France proved itself once again unable to bring a little diversity to our 577 representatives, back in June 2007.It’s so much easier to project our desires across the Atlantic than to question our own policies.

We even almost forgot that Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, bothAfro-Americans, were there long before Obama and that Democrats don’t hold a monopoly on diversity. We also forgive Obama on a lot of issues. He’s OK with carrying guns? “Whatever,” we think. “He only says that to appease influent lobbies”. The French casualties in Afghanistan remind us that it’s in this country that he plans to shift most of the War On Terrorism and that he expects a lot from Europe there.

Oil costs and social security also matter

During the last few days, polls have shown us how much tougher than expected the duel will be. Indeed, Americans don’t vote according to how well their candidate is perceived abroad. Oil costs, social security, foreign security, taxes… these are questions which matter in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, to only name few key states of the election.

Of course, Obama would be the perfect president for an Euro-American reconciliation and he would indeed prove to be less dogmatic than the Bush administration, but by seeing in him the incarnation of all our hopes, France becomes unable to understand the stakes of this campaign.

Let’s hope we’ll soon become lucid enough to understand that we shouldn’t be disappointed by an Obama who won’t think of us every morning while shaving in the White House, or get angry beforehand with McCain who could very well take it.

*Translator’s note: a notoriously unsuccessful French politician from the Ecologist party.