A Dollar And A Dream

Three More Days

Only 3 1/2 more full days before the election and both campaigns are planning to work up until the closing of polls on Tuesday.

Film and Election Update

Here in Cincinnati Malcolm and I are well into our filming of his experience as a British political activist doing ‘Get Out The Vote’ work in Ohio.

As I type I am uploading the 3 hours of footage we shot yesterday.

One of the biggest pieces of American news aside from each campaign's latest strategy is the slow down of the US economy this last quarter. You wouldn’t have known it though at the 'Hollywood Creations' store yesterday morning in Cincinnati where Malcolm and I hunted for Halloween Costumes for the evening's 'Trick or Vote' event.

Malcolm bought a stars and stripes top hat as well as a Bill Clinton mask and I walked away with a Statue of Liberty costume of which there are pictures on somebody’s camera, somewhere.

We went door to door with Malcolm’s friend Lewis, another British politico, asking people to make sure they get out to the polls on Tuesday. It was a non partisan event which meant it was simply about stressing the importance of voting versus one candidate’s politics over the other.

I was surprised at how many people had already voted. And how only a few commented on Malcolm and Lewis’s British accent. Maybe some thought it was a part of their costume. Most people were excited to see the Bill mask, one man yelling out 'We Miss You, Bill' as he closed his door. We subsisted on chocolate, pizza and alcohol last night and I am still recovering. Cincinnati really puts on a spectacular Halloween and I had forgot how Americans go all out. Perhaps the best costume among our crowd was a Diebold voting machine where if you voted for a Tootsie Roll a hand came through the silver box and delivered a Dum-Dum, and vice-versa. Again, there's a picture on someone's camera, somewhere!

Before the 'Trick or Vote' event we attended a Hillary Clinton Rally at the Letter Carrier’s Hall in Cincinnati. The crowd was fired up as there was talk of America being so close to realizing Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream and I found Hillary’s speech more inspiring than Bill’s in Harrisburg on Wednesday.

There was a small minority at the Rally who were wearing ‘Hillary For President’ t-shirts and after the rally, we witnessed one woman yelling out from her car window as she was stuck in the post-Rally traffic. She was apparently still upset that Hillary was not on the Democratic ticket.

One man across the street who at first was lending this woman his ear finally shook his head and drove away in frustration, ‘I don’t really have time for this.’ He had been trying to push Obama and she just wouldn't have it. It was the closet I had come to an election fight yet.

I juggled a still camera, a video camera and a digital audio recorder at the Rally and sometime after Hillary began speaking I decided to press record to see if I could capture the moment.

Today Malcolm plans on doing some canvassing and tomorrow there’s word of an Obama Rally in Columbus, and some say Cincinnati!

Car Update

For those of you wondering what happened to the ‘Spirit of America’ car after it wouldn’t start yesterday morning, the problem boiled down to fuel-injection cars and my lack of experience with them.

After a kind man arrived in a big red truck and charged the battery, I told him about how the car sputtered yesterday when I turned over the key after stopping for 10 minutes at the petrol station. It took three revs of the engine to get the car going.

He started to suspect the cause of the problem was something other than the battery.

‘Do you press down on the gas pedal when you start the engine?’

I gave an enthusiastic yes.

‘You’re not supposed to do that.’

I had no idea.

‘It’s okay, lots of people don't know.'

He was trying to make me feel less bad about my ignorance.

'The car's fuel-injected. You don't need to pump the gas pedal. You probably flooded the engine.'

‘This must be a new thing,’ wondering how I could have missed out on this particular driving lesson.

‘Um…since about the 80s.’

The 80s?! There really was no excuse.

We both started laughing. And I can hear you laughing too.

‘Have a good one,’ he said while climbing back into his big red truck.

Blog Update

Be sure to check out the sidebar of the blog for more related material.

Farewell PA

Today is Thursday 30 October and only 5 days remain before Election Day!

Sadly this morning I leave my home state and the state which continues to be a 'battleground' in this year's election to make the 8 hour drive to Cincinnati, Ohio where I will meet up with Malcolm, a British political activist.

This is because only 1 day remains before my blogging takes a back seat to filming.

I came to America one week ago to make a documentary film about the election through the eyes of a non-American who is interested and involved and has travelled from London to 'Get Out The Vote' for Obama. I spent this week getting my feet wet by having conversations with people on my travels from Newark to Queens to Long Island to Pennsylvania.

Now the real work begins.

So farewell Keystone state, and thank you to all of the people I've met out on the street who were willing to share their political opinions for the sake of this project.

And a big thank you to my family who has tolerated a very distracted visitor these past few days.

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So many people right now are obsessed with the polls.

Electoral Projections Done Right

But yesterday at the Bill Clinton Rally, one of the Pennsylvania dignitaries tasked to warm up the crowd said something that really stuck with me - Polls don't vote, people do!

So make sure you and your friends turn up at the polls on Election Day. And if you are not American, make sure you put pressure on all those you know!

An unprecedented voter turnout is expected so why don't you see if you can vote early?

About this time before elections there is usually talk of voter fraud. And unfortunately it's no different this year. But Video The Vote is an interesting organisation which has popped up to try and prevent this.

If you have some time available on Election Day, why not sign up to volunteer?

Video The Vote

Make sure to check out the photographs, videos and interviews I collected at the Bill Clinton Rally yesterday in the right hand column of this blog before you sign off. 

Until Cincinnati...

In America, at last

Malcolm and I are finally in America!

On Thursday evening I landed at Newark International Airport, and last night Malcolm arrived in Denver, where he'll reunite with friends he made at the Convention a few months ago. Malcolm's set to stay in Denver for a few days before moving onto Minneapolis. Then we'll both arrive in Cincinnati on Thursday.

Malcolm agreed to give me updates of his solo adventures by telephone before we hit the road together.

Yesterday morning I received his first dispatch from Heathrow, moments before he boarded his plane. He spoke of his reflective journey on the Piccadilly line on the way to the new Terminal 5.

You can listen to his voice message below:

Please note:

When I listened to and recorded Malcolm's voice message yesterday morning my friends’ cat was crying for breakfast so please excuse Lolo’s guest appearance at the start of this audio clip. I’ll strive to have less extraneous sounds in future audio clips posted on this blog!

2 Days and Counting

Not until the election, of course, but until the beginning of the American road trip which will take me first to Pennsylvania and then onto Ohio and Chicago.

Mentally I am more than ready but there are various technical odds and ends to tie up in order to make sure I have all the right kit I'll need once there!

Although I am hoping to make a film which will to a certain degree be about this momentous election, I also hope to consider the depth and breadth of the links which exist between the United Kingdom and the United States. Before I left for London in 2005, a former boss who had studied for a postgraduate degree at Cambridge University had warned me that I shouldn't be fooled into thinking that sharing a language meant that the Brits and the Americans would always be saying the same thing. Despite his advice I was taken by surprise, and still am, when I uncover yet another subtle difference which differentiates our two cultures.

The 'special relationship' between the U.K. and the U.S. of which Winston Churchill spoke of at the end of the Second World War seems to have always been ambiguous and open to interpretation, yet it seems that since the Iraq War more attention has been called to what this special relationship exactly entails.

On a less political and more personal level, I've heard that many young Britons today feel more closely aligned to the United States than they do to Europe.

And so I'm curious as to how this link between our two countries is perceived and understood in the Mid-West, where Malcolm will arrive to campaign amongst other Obama volunteers in the swing state of Ohio. How will they respond to someone who's not a citizen taking such an active interest in this election?

In addition to documenting Malcolm's activities in Ohio, I'm also interested in creating a space where non-Americans can listen to Americans' own views about who they are supporting in this election and why.

So along the way I'll post audio and/or video files of both Americans and non-Americans speaking about the election, so why not subscribe to the blog so that you can be alerted when new content is posted?

Also, please send me your comments - either by posting them directly to the site or by sending an email. I'm especially keen to hear from you if you know people I should try to meet up with while in Harrisburg, PA and/or Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio! I've already been warned that there will be eyes on my grammar as well as the usual folks monitoring what they think is my occasional gratuitous use of the exclamation point.

MEET MALCOLM

This weekend I had a chance to speak at length to Malcolm, the British political activist I will be following around Ohio beginning on the 30th.

We met at his house in South London where I had the chance to eye up his bookshelf which had, among the typical political tomes, a fascinating collection of what I call Obama memorabilia. But this collection included more than your run-of-the mill badges (or 'buttons' as we call them in the States). Yes, it was at Malcolm's house this Sunday where I saw my first Obama action figure!

Malcolm was already in the States this election season for the Democratic National Convention in Denver where he blogged as part of his work - Malcolm's blog. He was also lucky enough to score a pass which allowed him entry into the 'Big Tent' to hear Obama's speech so you can understand better how and why he had accumulated such a mass of unofficial Obama merchandise. (Unofficial because non-citizens cannot buy official merchandise as it is illegal for them to make contributions to any American political campaign.)

Malcolm talked about his expectations for our road trip, what he hopes to do while there (lots of blogging, talking to people on the streets and perhaps holding 'honk if you support Obama' type signs on the roadside), and how American politics has a Hollywood Factor which adds an element of fun and helps make politics all around more engaging.

I filmed the interview with Malcolm and hope you'll be able to see and hear him via clips I post to this blog in the coming days. (Once again, a very good reason to subscribe!)

ABSENTEEISM

Did you know that there is an estimated 6 - 10 million Americans living abroad, which is more than the June 2008 estimated population of New Zealand? Of these, approximately 155,000 are living in the U.K., of which I am one.

Last week I received my absentee ballot in the post. I've included photos of the ballot click here as it strikes me as anachronistic, especially the handwritten bit!

I didn't realise until recently but American expats were not taken very seriously politically until the 1975 Overseas Citizens Absentee Ballot Act.

Even still, I am not so happy about this clause, which I've taken straight from the ballot envelope:

Ballot must be received by the close of the polls on election day, except that ballots contained in envelopes postmarked by a governmental postal service or a dated endorsement of receipt by another agency of the United States government, not later than the day before election, may be received until seven days after election and will be counted.

I now know why some of my friends have made special trips to the U.S. to cast an early vote versus dealing with this paperwork and the chances of it getting lost or arriving late. I may carry my ballot with me and post it from America just to be safe.

Fire Up The Engines

The tickets are finally booked!

In just over a week I'll head to the States to meet up with Malcolm, a British political activist, in the heart of the swing state of Ohio. This is after he reunites with convention friends in Denver and makes a pit stop in Minneapolis.

Though this third leg of his trip will be quite different as Malcolm has never explored the terrain beyond America's medium to big-sized cities in all of his previous trips. I realised this much when we were having a conversation about public transportation in Ohio. Needless to say we opted to hire a car.   

I suspect there will be more instances when I'll have to moonlight as a cultural interpreter while juggling the camera and driving the car. Unless, after living in London for the last three years, Ohio strikes me as foreign as it does Malcolm. Come to think of it, what if people think I'm foreign?   

When I began attending Obama meetings in London a few months ago, I was struck at the number of non-Americans in attendance.

At the first meeting there was an outspoken Irishman named Kevin who runs a hotel in Westminster called Blades (http://www.blades-hotel.co.uk/) and who arrived to the meeting in Regents Park wearing an Obama t-shirt. A lover of America, he nicknamed his first house in Essex 'Kennedy'. What he said was something like this: I love America. Now the whole world is depending on the country to get it right.

Most people agree that the outcome of American presidential elections affects people far beyond its own borders. And perhaps none more so than this election. But what motivates someone without citizenship to give up their holiday time and the cost of a plane ticket to volunteer campaign when I've heard of American citizens who are right now sitting in an apathetic, dejected state, shouting at their T.V.s from the comfort of their living rooms?

Soon after attending my first Obama meeting I was inspired to make a short documentary film about the election. But through the eyes of a non-American. And not in London, but in America. 

The plan is to travel around The Buckeye State where Malcolm will link up with other British (and American) activists along the way to 'Get Out The Vote' for Obama.

But will the Americans he meets take note that he's British? And if so, how will they respond?

Especially as some Ohioans, or 'Buckeyes' (called so after the Buckeye tree) did not take kindly to interference from the other side of the pond which arrived in their mail boxes after The Guardian initiated a letter writing campaign to residents of Clark County during the last election.

I set up this blog to chart the progess of the film, which will chart Malcolm's adventures on this last stretch of the road to the White House.   

But the blog will also be a respository of sorts where I hope to share interesting and sometimes tangential antecdotes and facts I collect along the way. 

Already I've had some interesting questions when talking to some British friends about the film.

Question #1 (from a British documentary film editor): Is voting obligatory in America?

Answer: Absolutely not!

But in Brazil, if you're aged between 18 and 70 and literate, it is. Theoretically If you don't vote in Brazil, you can be fined.  (see http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=46)

Question #2 (I can't remember who from...): What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican anyway?

Answer: Coming soon in the words of the Democrats and Republicans I encounter along the way...