We used to party with this guy about ten years ago in Melbourne. He was the kind of friend who, when everyone started to fade at 5am, would suddenly appear with a crash helmut wrapped in foil on his head or something, and make sure the party didn’t slip. He facebooked us the other day and we asked him what he was doing with himself. His response was, "living the American dream and attempting to get a black man elected president." Turns out he works for a firm which consults to the Democratic Party and has been living in Washington on and off for the last 8 years. So we asked him to write us something about this election thing. Here’s what he had to say.There’s been a lot of politics to absorb over the past year in the US. With the presidential candidates finally settled, the two major parties recently held their conventions to masses of adoring and completely crazy party faithful. I was in Denver for the Democratic National Convention last month, which sort of felt like a Grateful Dead concert, a weekend in Vegas, jury duty, and a high security prison all rolled into one. Now I’m back in DC working my face off for the good of another country.I’m an Australian, and a "beltway" political consultant. I live and work in Washington DC, but I’m far from a Washington insider. Here, once you think you’re in the inner circle, you quickly discover there’s one even more "inner" than yours. You also discover a bunch of peon wankers who don’t understand that the more they talk about their faux-important job, the more I want to punch them in the face.Regardless, Washington around this time of year is uber fun, and it’s working pound for pound harder than most other places. It’s "go" time, and political strategists are literally working themselves into the ground trying to navigate the very peculiar intersection of money, media, power, ego and voting behavior (are you a hard or soft Dem?) to elect candidates everywhere at every level. Reputations are won or lost, 95-hour weeks are normal and booze and cigarette sales jump measurably. It’s maximum human effort, or go home and don’t come back. And it’s fun as shit.Unlike Australia, politics in the US is a huge industry, and as we speak thousands of young slightly dysfunctional political campaigners are holed up around the country in shitty ex-urban low rent campaign offices on the wrong side of town eating frozen burritos and banging out fundraising calls, press releases, walk lists and policy statements for their candidate. Many will discover campaign sex, a devolving human practice, which in extreme cases can lead to a shotgun wedding 7 months later in an Elvis drive through chapel in Vegas. Not that my friends would ever do that‚ĶAlso unlike Australia, or any other country for that matter, huge sums of money are spent electing candidates in the US. This year alone more money will be spent up and down the ticket than Australia will spend over the next five years tackling climate change. That’s a lot of money for a lot of hot air (I can’t believe I just wrote that). A single average US senate candidate will spend around 20 million, with races over 120 million not unheard of. That’s more than twice what the ALP and Libs spent combined in last year’s federal election. The money is spent mostly on communication to voters ‚Äì TV, cable, mail, staff to knock on doors, research, internet advertising and so on. Anyway we can get to you, we will. What can I tell you, it’s our civic duty to inform you about those vying to represent you. We’re doing you a favor!So together over the next 8 weeks we can watch the progress of Republicans and Democrats (and Ralph Nader) and try to shed some light on the amazing process that is US election politics. As a side note, for those of you who caught some political programs this week, there is not much to be said about the freakiness that is Chuck Norris’s new face, hair and teeth I just thank God he’s still in possession of that razor sharp political mind…no, wait‚ĶFact of the week ‚Äì campaigns in many states will pay voters for their support. No, I mean pay them, cash, in a bag. Now that’s retail politics in its purest form.MICHAEL ALLEN
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