This photo is on the window of a French Restaurant

near the Spanish border. The restaurant is owned by two Frenchmen. Yes we can.

Yesterday I met the postman who had delivered my last presidential ballot, now retired. When I'd said it was my vote for Kerry, he hugged me, and the woman at the post when she asked me who I had voted for when I handed her the envelope said, "Okay, I'll pass it on."

This election I haven't seen the same passion, but then neither candidate has generated the same hatred and contempt as Bush has. That was the first time I had experienced it having lived through every election since Bush 41.

When non-Americans talk about the election they want to know about economic policies and what a new president might do to prevent future idiocies like the subprime crisis. This is not voyeurism, it has affected their lives too as they learned that European bank investments in subprime instruments have threatened their savings and their own abilities to get credit. That European banks did invest, merely shows stupidity and greed can be international.

I am always amazed that many of the Europeans have a better grip on the issues in the American election than many Americans seem to have be it the war, torture, the lack of health insurance (I have yet to meet a European who can come to grips with that problem it is so unthinkable), what they hear about our education system (they know their kids outperform ours), the poverty, the violence, etc.

As my housemate says, and I find it myself more and more having lived on b0th sides of the pond I understand both mentalities.