Nobama

A quick glance at the newspaper above will give you the news. Or perhaps you’ve already heard. Yup. Kaiser’s is having a sale this weekend. Almost as exciting is that little blurb about Barack Obama. He bought a Eurail pass this summer, I guess. This week brought him to Berlin. The papers say 200,000 people saw him speak below the Seigessäule in Tiergarten. My count is more like 199,998, since Julie and I were sitting on a platform in Prague at the time of his address. I guess I should have checked with my buddy Matt who is working for Obama before scheduling a trip to the Czech Republic. Alas, our hotel and train tickets were already booked and paid for by the time the “O” man settled on his European itinerary.

So instead of being packed in on Strasse 17 Juni, watching our Next President * hold court (likely having to follow on a video monitor, but still) Julie and I listened to the audiobook of Dreams For My Father between loudspeaker announcements updating us on the late arrival of our train from Prague to Berlin.



We were left to read about the speech in Der Spiegel, and to watch a few measly clips on CNN International after we finally arrived home late Thursday night. German reaction seems to be much the same as what Obama has encountered in the states so far: namely, abundantly enthusiastic. Though, also like in the states, it is unclear if the enthusiasm is for the candidate himself or for the Event with a capital “E” that is an Obama rally. One front page I saw the next day called him Prinzen Amerikaner… and the aforementioned Der Spiegel had a whole magazine about the “Super Star.”



Julie and I moved from Hillary country to Obamaland back in June. At least, all our stuff moved to Obamaland. Not sure if my TV or my grill has registered in Illinois yet. In my unscientific survey of the German populace ** I have learned that Germans are skeptical about “charisma” in their politicians. Whether or not this is a hangover from Hitler or just a handy explanation for the success of Angela Merkel I will leave to the bloggers on Salon and Slate. What I can predict is that come November, Julie and I will continue our trend of voting Democratic in the bluest of the blue states, thus ensuring that we have the smallest impact possible on the results. Maybe Julie should have applied for that job at Oberlin.

* This is an example of my attempt at a reverse-reverse jinx. Having had no doubt that Al Gore would beat Bush in ’00, and after being beyond certain that Kerry would prevail in ’04, only to be blindsided when the results came in, I am resorting to superstition to help carry the day this time around.

** Survey taken the night of July 14th while at dinner with our friend Jens, consisting of Jens and his partner, You Tsai. Margin of error +/- 82 million.