This November, Vote NO To Negative Campaign Ads

God I miss England. Over there you're not allowed to have TV ads for politics, much less negative ones. But over here? I just saw six negative campaign ads in a row.

Six. Six!

(Well, 5, Kirsten Gillibrand's was just her standing there talking about how the state is sucking and blaming its problems on someone else)

I mean, is the election here yet? Because I'm over it.

But Really, Who's Prime Minister?

I feel like I have to write a really really long entry about elections over here, because it was the most amazing and exhausting experience I've had here. And yet the UK still has no definitive leader.

The whole mess started on Thursday morning. My alarm went off at 6:30 and I laughed at it and fell asleep for another half hour. When I did get up, I managed to get myself together and get down to Southend around 9 AM. And as soon as I dropped my bag off at the office, I was out at a polling stations telling (recording polling numbers so that the party can see who actually went to vote, and who didn't). Froze my ass off with a few other sort of rude Conservatives down in Southend.

When Dennis made it to the station, I was off to "knock up" doors (which sounds pretty wrong, but it's basically just knocking on doors to make sure they voted) for the next however long. Kevin and Chris and David Norman were off in the Labourmobile (the picture right here) with a loudspeaker on top, yelling at people to go vote - and sometimes to use better language when insulting the Labour party. I went back to Coleman Street to do more telling, ended up talking to this little kid who asked what language I was speaking. Clearly, he understood every word I was saying, but I just sounded different. Thought it was pretty funny.

The exciting part of the night was the count. Over here, they still do the paper ballots rather than the electronic votes that we do (or the crazy ones they do in Florida, which is probably for the best, to be honest), so they had to hand count every single vote in the constituency - the area has over 70,000 people in it, and that's just Rochford and Southend East. So before the count could even begin, they had to verify that all the votes were real, and that everyone agreed on how many there were. So the prelims for the counting started at 10 PM. The actual results didn't happen until 5 AM the next morning.

The bar upstairs was where a lot of the action was, and where all the comfortable warm chairs (the sports center was FREEZING) and alcohol were. It was also where the televisions were with Sky News (they have better election coverage than BBC) and the BBC were showing. Got to watch the whole country vote, got to see Ian more excited than I've ever seen him and almost smack Tim when they called Birmingham Edgbaston for Labour. That's also where we went to drown sorrows when Angela Smith lost her seat to the Conservatives.

The other responsibility was to watch the votes and make sure that they were all going in the right piles. Rob was pretty good at this one, he was watching this one table from Victoria like a hawk. When they finally did turn in the verdict, it was around 4:45 AM. James Duddridge won, to no one's surprise, and gave a nice speech. Kevin got second and made a very nice speech. They called the Southend West right after, and Tom got third place. And then we all went to sleep for like 4 hours before the local count (which unfortunately didn't go as well as hoped).

Turns out that Kevin won a spot on the council in Lewisham, though, so there you go.

Finals vs. Prime Minister

I was given a pretty easy choice around 10 PM last night. I could go to class this morning and take my British Comedy final, proctored by Mr. Bill, which consisted of watching a show and analyzing it for why it was funny. Or I could go to Basildon, wave a "Vote Labour" sign with a mob of excited supporters, and shake hands with Gordon Brown.

Naturally, I chose door #2 (not Number 10, although that would be awesome). I just had to manage to convince Bevan Jooooooones and Mr. Bill that I would make up my final and be back that afternoon to do so.

After a few frantic e-mails around 10:30ish, I decided to wake up early (7:30 AM) and go bother Bill when he got there at 8. I jumped around the front door a little until he strolled up to unlock at 8:10. I asked him, and he took a second to mumble, "Sure, yeah, have a good time."

My next order of business was to make it down to Basildon on time. Kevin said that I should get to Basildon station at 9:15, so that I could hitch a ride with him and Ian. The issue here is that Basildon is halfway to Southend - meaning it would take at least a half an hour to get there. Furthermore, it takes a half an hour to get to Fenchurch St, via Tower Hill. So essentially, I had to leave Fenchurch St. by 8:45 - meaning there had to be a train like as soon as I got there.

Clearly, the powers that be were smiling on me today and as soon as I got my ticket, I saw that there was a train leaving in 3 minutes to Shoeburyness (which I fortunately made it on to). Made it to the station literally at 9:14.

And the rest was rainy history. I made it to the office, got to hold up a "Vote Labour" sign and shake Gordon Brown's hand. We also got to yell at some Conservatives who showed up late to taunt him and get some press. Unfortunately for them, they showed up 20 minutes too late.

ETA: Am I the only one who thinks that Gordon Brown looks a little like Victor Garber?

Now If He Sold Thin Mints, He'd Be In Business

"Hello there, I'm your prime minister. Are there any local issues you're worried about?"

I mean, what would you do if Gordon Brown showed up on your doorstep? Obviously offer him tea, sure, but I think I would like squeal. Even if I didn't like him, that's sort of awesome that the Prime Minister of your country popped up on your stoop.

Labour's unfortunately not doing too great in the polls right now, so Brown has a ways to go before he catches up some lost ground.

Now if he were selling cookies, I think he'd do great.

And You Thought The Puerto Rico Voting Laws Were Weird

So on the ride home from work yesterday, while the radio played crap soft rock from the 90s, Kevin explained to me why the Zimbabwean population in Southend is so important. I didn't realize that they can actually vote.

Over here in the UK, the law says that if you live anywhere in the Commonwealth of the UK - former colonies, not including the US - you can vote in national elections and vote in local elections, but not in EU elections. Furthermore, UK nationals living abroad can vote in EU and national elections, but not local ones. So while our country is going on about immigration issues, these immigrants can actually vote on how the laws will affect them.

And that's leaving out Scotland and Wales. Both parts of the country have their own parliaments now, thanks to Tony Blair. But both are also still represented with seats in British Parliament.

Dress for Success

Last night was the big fundraising dinner for Kevin and his Labour crew. It was at a fish and chips restaurant down in Southend, right on the water, really pretty (well, I'm sure it would be if it were warm out rather than freezing in February), and as Kevin was adjusting his tie, he mentioned he was wearing the "Labour uniform."

Meaning a navy suit, shirt, then red tie. And then I noticed that he really wasn't kidding. Lord Adonis, the head of transportation for the UK, was wearing the same thing. And then I thought back to the Progress talks where people were wearing the same thing there. And then I found this picture of Tony Blair.

It's like a school uniform!

I Sort Of Love Al Gore

He went green. He's a democrat. He's (somewhat) eloquent. He's been on SNL and 30 Rock. And he knows what a "Chyron" is. And we didn't elect him. Discuss.

SNL and Politics: A Match Made in Minnesota

We've probably all seen Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden, Darrell Hammond as John McCain, and Fred Armisen as Barack Obama.

And if you haven't, you totally should go YouTube.

But according to the BBC today (yes, I troll it daily, I like staying informed), the courts have finally decided that Al Franken is the new junior senator from Minnesota.

Go Al!

I also discovered that the word "Filibuster" comes from the Dutch word for "pirate." Go figure.