American Views Abroad

Interesting week politically and especially when you get to watch people going to the polls in two nations. Creeping out of bed at 5 am on Sunday to see who won in South Carolina and tuning in at 6pm to register who might win in the state of Hessen in Germany. A woman, Andrea Ypsilanti, very smart, well educated, self-made, from a blue collar background, with, no less, a non-German last name managed to pull even with the current Governor, Roland Koch. Koch managed to pull every (cheap) card out of his sleeve during the campaign to attack young migrants for their violence. Of course during the course of his tirades, three young German thugs were finally caught who almost beat a poor man to death in Hamburg on New Year's Day. This time the public was in no mood to be pandered to on this level. The first time running Koch tossed the idea that having two citizenships and being allowed to vote in two countries was an outrage and his message managed to get him elected. (For the record, my two adult children have two citizenships and vote in the US elections as Special Federal Voters from the State of New York and vote in all German elections, including the upcoming Hamburg one in February. I can only vote in federal US elections because if I were to become a German, I would be forced to renounce my US citizenship. Since my children received their citizenships as a birth right from both mother and father, they are allowed to do what I can never do simply because I live here with a German husband.)

Politically, German women have been breaking the so-called glass ceiling on their own, without a husband who preceded them in office, without having gone to any 'women's only college', without big family money behind them, without big name universities, but rather state universities which till now did not charge tuition. An argument can be made that it was the Green Party that helped women find a political voice and introduced not only women but alternative life styles to a rather formal, male dominated political scene.

People here are very involved in following the US primaries. How can they not after almost eight years of Bush II, the war in Iraq, the dismal economic news plus a cast of colorful characters, high emotions and the fact that the man and woman on the street forces the candidates to come down and speak to them. However, it's not the former First Lady as much as her rival who is attracting attention. Once upon a time here a US diplomat remarked on how his daughter knew so many Presidents, but my children seemed to know only one German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl who was in office for so many years, one lost count. Times have indeed changed. It is now young Americans who only seem to know Bush, Clinton, Bush, perhaps another Clinton with a Kennedy or two thrown in it all. It seems odd and disturbing in such difficult times that so few are running, including other women. However, as in most things in US life today, money rules and without mega-bucks (whether through marriage, either to a millionaire or to a former President) throwing one's hat into the ring becomes a probably too daunting hurdle to climb. Sad, very sad state of affairs.