A little Late To The Party...

I’m an American working as a news photographer for a northern European television network. I started this blog because I wanted to share my experiences as an American shooting and editing news stories for a European audience. I worked for a major American television network for over a decade before marring a beautiful Nordic woman and switching sides, The contrast in coverage of this presidential election through a foreign lens is a bit different than what we receive from American media. In northern Europe they have many political parties and the election is very short. Our primary season seems to have lasted forever!!. They have results in a couple of months where here we have been in presidential “mode” for over 2 years. I find American media, (television in this case), to be much more interested in the candidates. Europeans want to learn about Americans as much as the candidates. So I have found myself doing a lot of stories that emphasize the "voter". Where they live, how they live and why they think the way they do. My journey on this campaign trail has been spotty because of my second adoption of an Ethiopian child, my wife has a blog about our adoption adventures at http://www.habeshahouse.blogspot.com/. But even during my two week stay in Africa the buzz was about the American presidential election. I would stay up until 2am to watch "The Situation Room" on CNN International. I started in Iowa interviewing what pundits call; "value voters", in cold that you could only experience to relate to. I have heard of "conservatism" but I found out that I didn't really understand how conservative, conservative really was. One cold evening we went to interview an older couple watching the Republican debate, (I don't remember where the debate was). They were Christian Conservatives and favored Mike Huckabee, the reverend/former governor from Hope Arkansas. Their home was modest and comfortable. They were big in the Iowa republican party and attended the last two inaugurations of George Bush and have beautifully framed pictures on the wall to prove it. They were nice and polite and welcoming. The opinions they espoused on the election were just what I expected...They thought Hillary was of the "Evil One", (the husbands description), and McCain was not a real conservative, Romney was too religiously "weird". As for Rudy Giuliani, he was too liberal. The wife had the most shocking, she said that "women are not strong enough to be president'. We're too emotional for that job...Its a man's job". While I found her comments to be pre-historic it fit my preconceived notion of what people in middle America were like. No way a mixed race, black man with a funny name had a chance in this state...I was wrong! Boy, was I wrong. Not only did Barack Obama win but won BIG!! It sent an ominous message to the rest of the field of candidates and to the rest of the nation, that the times they are a changin...