My First Vote

Well, I did it. My ballot is in the box. My polling place is in the Baptist church a couple of blocks from my place. The line up was short and orderly and casual. No hassles, no problems. I thought I might have a bit of a problem because I never did get a voter registration card. When I checked my registration on line, there I was, with all vital statistics correct, except that my gender was listed as female. I had contemplated going in drag or telling them that I was "in transition," but there was no problem. I just put my mail-in ballot in the box, and was done with it. I was a bit disappointed in that there were no voting machines with levers to pull or ballots to punch or curtains to close. If there had been, I would have done it the old-fashioned way. Washington is going to all mail-in voting, so for my first vote, I wanted to actually go to the polling place.

I've lived in the USA for over 25 years and certainly done my share of criticizing presidents. Reagan was in power when we first moved to St. Louis, and I could never understand why he was such a popular president. He seemed totally clueless and out of it at times. He didn't know members of his own cabinet, and he needed cue cards for his lines when he met world leaders. He ran up huge deficits, allowed Iran-Contra to happen, and was responsible for the S&L mess and the first major Wall Street scandals. (Remember the good old days of Ivan Boesky and Michael Millikan?)

George Bush the Elder was OK, except for the way he handled the First Gulf War. I couldn't believe the way he made Saddam Hussein, a third-rate, third-world, tin-pot dictator into a modern day Hitler, and even more so, I couldn't believe the way Americans lapped it up. I got my first taste of America - love it or leave it- and my first taste of the blind bloodthirstiness that almost seems like part of the American character. I did admire the way he put together a world-wide coalition to throw the Iraqis out of Kuwait. The aftermath was a debacle. After calling for a revolution to overthrow the regime, he let Saddam have almost free reign to slaughter the Shiites and Kurds. Bush I left a truly sad and sorry mess in Iraq.

I never did like Clinton all that much. He was probably the best US politician of my generation, and I did admire him for successfully surviving the incredible attacks of the whacko right wing, but in the end I think he is a deeply flawed character who squandered his gifts for a blow-job in the Oval Office.

And of course everyone knows what a total unmitigated disaster George II has been. His flaws and failures are too many to list, and I honestly can think of nothing good to say about him.

The USA has been great to me on a personal basis. I've lived a life here that has been blessed (or maybe just really lucky) in so many ways. But whenever I travelled overseas and people asked where I was from, I'd say St. Louis, Seattle, or wherever I was living at the time, but in the same breath I'd say I was Canadian. Assuming that the election today turns out as it should and Obama is elected, when that question is asked of me, I'll be proudly American. The fact that I'm also proudly Canadian will come out later after the third or fourth breath.