Thank God the election’s over

So Barack Obama has been given his first official tour of the White House, and will shortly become the new president of the USA – the very first black president at that, writes Emma Suddaby.

Well thank goodness for that is all I can say . . . not thank goodness he’s black, just thank goodness it’s finally over, done, decided. It felt like the American Election had been going on for most of my adult life.

They do have a tendency to make a meal out of everything, (and as everybody seems to have lost their sense of humour, lately, I’d better apologise in advance to any American readers that this column will undoubtedly offend!) 

But I don’t understand the need for such pomp and glitz in the political arena, some of those voter rally’s were more like rock concerts.

It seems their election process was a far more staged and image-aware affair than our stuffy old way of doing things. We tend to concentrate on policies, promises and pledges of intentions whereas in America they seem more worried about outfits, out-doing the other guy and being in with the in-crowd.

I realise we all have different ways of doing things and I’m being flippant about a system that works perfectly well, but it felt so staged that I still didn’t feel I really knew either Obama or McCain any better by the end of it. 

Not content with being able to airbrush imperfections from a photograph, America seems to have found a way of airbrushing whole political campaigns…

There are things our politicians could learn from them, though. I read that Obama’s camp succeeded in motivating a previously disinterested section of America into voting, by connecting with them through YouTube and the like.  Our lot are always moaning about the amount of people who don’t bother to vote at all in this country, a whole wasted chunk of polling-power – why on earth don’t they take a leaf out of Obama’s book and start thinking outside the box like that?

But on the whole, you can give me our funny-looking, badly-dressed, unrehearsed and scandal-ridden politicians any day, over America’s slick and shiny, super-groomed governmental elite.

I’d far rather our Prime Minister was dealing with matters of national importance than spending time making sure his good lady wife is wearing the designer of the moment.  And, to be honest, I actually find his lack of charm and conversational gaffes far more reassuring than the fevered, evangelical speeches Obama favours.

Either way, the die has been cast, the last piece of ticker tape has fluttered to the floor and history has been made. 

Let’s just hope Obama doesn’t decide to pack it all in anytime soon because I, for one, don’t think I could cope with having to go through it all again.