US Politics

Sometimes I wonder if European people know and care more about US politics than we do! The Obama/Clinton race has been watched very closely over here and we are constantly being asked by our friends who we want and think will win. Its funny, I’m not sure how things stand in the US, but McCain sure doesn’t get much ink in these parts. The media seems to be infatuated with the Democratic race in a big way. The Italians love to talk politics and it should not be a surprise given the ancient history of politics in this country which dates back to the Roman Senate before Christ!

Most Italians seem to be fans of Hillary and I think its because Bill Clinton is so respected internationally (Italians laugh over the silliness of the Monica Lewinski scandal and choose to focus on Bill’s political foreign policy record as well as the state of the US economy under the former administration). On the flip side Italians seem to feel a bit weary of Obama mostly because they don’t feel like they know enough about him. Even in a day and age where US sentiment abroad is at an all time low, there is little doubt that we are still looked up to in many ways. In some respects, our elections are getting more ink and interest than the Italian ones coming up in March when a new prime minister will be elected. This is likely due to the fact that most, if not all Italians view their government as a joke, full of corrupt people that make promises and never keep them! How is Bush viewed you ask? Let’s just say that he is not the favorite son of Europe and leave it at that. Either a Clinton or Obama result in November would be viewed positively in Italy as both would send an interesting message abroad regarding the American voters open mindedness to change.

In these parts, the US economy is a really big deal as Italy is heavily reliant upon tourism. In fact the other day I was shopping in Georigo Armani and when I paid for the clothes that I bought the sales guy informed me that I was the first American customer that he had sold something to this year! (I was hoping this would win me a special prize but no such luck). The dollar is horrible here. When we arrived it traded at roughly $1.32 to 1.00 euro. Now we are at $1.55 to 1.00 euro, an all time low. It looks like we picked the worst possible year to move to Europe! This of course does not at all help the Italian economy which relies heavily on exporting goods to the US (Olive Oil, Wine and Clothes being three of the biggest items). US demand for these products has certainly waned in the light of higher prices and the Italians are feeling it big time.