And in This Corner Is the Middle Weight Champion

We joined the Democrats Abroad group to watch the vice presidential debates last week and last night the second of the presidential debates. We missed the first debate when we were in Salzburg, but had heard it was so disappointing, I am glad it passed us by.

One thing that is apparent is that the moderator’s job is a tough task. Just by coincidence, I Googled it and this article appeared in the Washington Post Mission Impossible: Moderating a presidential debate. One would think that two grown men who have the world watching would show some respect not only for each other, but for the moderator. The rules are explicitly set forth ahead of time, they are reviewed in brief before they start, but still it turns into a pissing contest.

Admittedly, I lean Democrat, but only because there is no healthy alternative. That said I could not believe how downright rude Mitt Romney was in the debate. Candy Crowley needed to be an S and M Madame to whip him back into his place. He went overtime repeatedly, refused to pay attention to her continual requests to return to his seat, and continued answers to previous questions when asked to move on. Okay, Obama was not a saint and I am not excusing him either, but in comparison, he was more of a gentleman with leadership qualities.

I could not help but wonder how these debates could be monitored better as it is a continual issue with all debates, especially political. I arrived at two possible solutions, but as experience teaches us, start with the less threatening and work your way up from there.

Problem 1: We all were privy to the digital timer giving each speaker 2 minutes at which time it is green. When they get the 5 second warning, it turns red. Finally, it blackens out when the time is over and the candidate is expected to control themselves and shut the hell up. If they don’t, the moderator’s role is to try to get them to do so.

Solution 1: When the candidate’s time is over, turn off their microphone. It is simple and an excellent behavior modification tool.

Solution 2: This one is more drastic. Back in the early days of television, there was a show called the 64,000 Dollar Question. At a certain point, the contestant was placed in an isolation booth on stage to ponder the answer. During this time, the booth was blackened out and kept soundproof. This would be perfect for debates. Both sit in an individual booth. While one candidate is speaking, the other is sitting in the dark in their booth, listening, but not being able to use a microphone until their booth is lit up. When their time is over, the booth darkens yet again.

Hey, if they cannot act like sophisticated men, while not treat them with the tools necessary to control their behavior?

Related articles

• The Presidential Debate on Mute
• From sidelines, debate moderator Crowley becomes part of story
• 7 Things You May Not Know About U.S. Presidential Debates
• Debate Rules Reveal Presidential Puppet Show
• Leaked Documents Reveal "Monopoly-Like" Control of Presidential Debates
• 2012 Presidential Debate: What To Watch For At Hofstra

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Happy 4th of July

If you are celebrating the holiday, have a great time, but stay safe with those BBQ fires and fireworks. I chose not to attend the Democrats Abroad picnic. I did not want to go alone, but I am not much of a mixer with the usual crowd who does attend.

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Election Day

What should have been a simple process, turned into Star Wars. I opened an account with E-Fax.com for their 30 day trial period, but my credit card was on the line for another month's service if we went beyond that. I had multiple reminders in my Google calendar to end the service. From the 15th, I have been receiving faxes with ballots. After opening each one, I had to print them. One person faxed his same ballot twice in the same fax. Others faxed two ballots in one fax, but since I did not catch it right away, I had to go back and check all seventeen faxes to make sure nothing was missed. When a fax only contained a note stating they would fax the ballot later in the day, I wanted to strangle them for wasting my time. The shut off time was 3:00 pm today. At 3:05, the Democrats Abroad International computer support person released the e-mails from the voting e-mail address. I had to open all of those, even if they did not contain a ballot just to verify the contents. There were twenty-two of them. The International has a ruling that all ballots have to be signed. Not having a secret ballot, caused quite an uproar, but it was clearly stated on the ballot that an unsigned ballot would be discarded and not counted. We received one in an e-mail where the person e-mailed the ballot in the body of the e-mail, contrary to instructions that it had to be printed out, filled in, signed, and scanned as an attachment. Armed with the ballots received, we went to the meeting. One of my committee was there signing everyone in, where we had to show a passport or picture ID. This is the first time I had met anyone on my committee; after three attempts at arranging a meeting, I threw in the towel. Ron was running for Member-At-Large along with three others for two positions. After the opening of the meeting, each nominee had three minutes to give a short ditty about why they should be elected. The rules were announced. After I passed out the ballots and collected them, the Nom Committee would split into two groups with one additional non-partisan person in each group. First, broken into two groups with me in the middle, each group checked off names from the membership list as I read them off of the ballots. Only one ballot was from a non-member and had to be discarded. This was also to prevent anyone from voting via fax or e-mail and again in person. All ballots were checked for signatures. One group would count the fax and e-mail votes while the other group counted the in-person votes. We marked each vote as it was counted with a different color pen to make sure each group had counted it. When each group was done, they would switch piles and continue counting. At the end, we compared numbers for agreement. Our 'friend' Michael who had promised to come to the meeting, never showed up. He had grave concerns about having to sign the ballot since his university thesis advisor was running for Chair. Ron lost by one vote, raising my ire with Michael's inability to be a man and not a rat. When the results were read out, there were glad tidings and major disappointments all around. The woman who ran unopposed for secretary and received 50 votes, called for a recount since the Chair position was won by only a three point lead. I sprayed her with my most potent laser beam killing force stare while asking "Are you for real?" No one seconded her motion, so it was dropped. It had already been two hours of agony; everyone wanted to make like Casper the ghost and disappear. We arrived home, opened the front door and found our jailbird mural artist standing in the hallway waiting for us.

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Hallway Tile and Democrats

When we arrived home last night, there was a piece of cardboard in front of our door that had STOP written on it in English. We were not sure if it was a warning from the tile man or an omen left by a burglar. To our great relief, it was the former, so we tip-toes over the newly grouted tile until it had time to dry completely. It looks magnificent. He perfectly lined up the tiles with those in the kitchen, so it looks like one straight line. Although I should have been reading students' essays, I did spend the day arranging books on the new bookcases. I cannot work in chaos, so have to have everything in order before setting down to a task at hand. Normally, my stress reduction technique is to clean a closet, but they were done so recently, there was nothing left to do. Arranging books is the secondary mind flush experience. A good mind flush is definitely in order now. I had allowed myself to be nominated as the Nominations Committee Chair for the Hungary chapter of Democrats Abroad. It seemed like a simple enough task, when I agreed to it. Come into my web said the spider to the fly. It just turned into another of those bait and switch experiences that melts your mind and makes you question the meaning of life. The two men and I use the term loosely, who were running for Chair of the chapter were at each other like two five-year-olds, using the mailing list as their forum. They each wanted to conform the rules for the election to their own liking, which meant the International Democrats Abroad had to be consulted for rules and regulations. I had to set up a temporary fax service and the International created a special e-mail box for those who wanted to vote absentee. The results of the mailbox will not be released to me until Wednesday afternoon. The election is that evening. The infighting was worse than any national presidential election, causing me pause about being a Democrat at all. After I created the ballot, when nominations were closed, some complained that they were supposed to be on the ballot, though they did not think to nominate themselves or ask anyone else to do so. My committee of three were either out of the country at the time or just non-responsive to my missives and requests for assistance. With all of the e-mails going back and forth, this turned into a part-time job, causing much regret on my part. When Wednesday comes, I will celebrate and then purge my mailboxes of hundreds of e-mails.

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My Worst Nightmare

Last night, we had eight others from Hungary for Obama come over with their laptops and mobile phones. Using Jajah accounts, we called undecided voters in Ohio, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. We worked in teams with one person on the computer and one on the phone, each pair making about 50 calls. It was a great feeling of being involved. This election, I have been more involved than ever before. A friend of ours sent this video. This is my worst nightmare, but I have voted already, so I am safe. Don''t make it your worst nightmare.

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The Obama Song (World of Friends): Bridges for Obama

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Bridges for Obama: American supporters of Sen. Barack Obama have been staging rallies abroad at world-famous bridges to show support for the Democratic presidential candidate and his pledge to span old political divisions.

The Obama Song (World of Friends): Japan-based American musical artists created and performed this song to celebrate Sen. Obama's historic candidacy and to inspire us all to change the world. Hungary is here as well as Democrats Abroad from a number of countries. It gives me chills to see the support and love.

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Putting My Body Where My Mouth Is

A couple of weeks ago, Democrats Abroad asked if we would volunteer for registering people to vote at the "Hungary for Obama" concert event. At the time it sounded like a great idea and we both said "Sure, why not?" We have both been volunteer registrars at other events with dismal results so a black cloud was floating over this idea once I said yes. To be supportive, we registered and bought a T-shirt with the "Hungary for Obama" logo on it for 3,500 Huf each. When 6:30 pm came around last night, I really did not want to drag myself out of the house to go to this event. It was held at the Merlin Theater, a venue that used to have many plays in English, but has since moved more toward German and Hungarian. In the past, we had season tickets, but had not been for over a year since there was nothing in a language we spoke. They spiffed up the place and it was looking mighty good. Merrill Oates, the organizer has a platoon of volunteers handling the shirt sales and distribution. His organizational skills would have made Amazon.com envious. The theater has a large restaurant on the second floor where the event started. Each table was embellished with a plate of sandwiches, Hungarian biscuits, cookies, and candles. Being an audio-visual techie, Merrill had slide shows going on both huge walls, while a bandstand was ready for the musical entertainment. This obviously was not a slapped together event and would have made any Democrat proud. The US Embassy sent a Hungarian employee from the Consular Service to assist us with registration. Since each state has its own rules and regulations of what information they require for a person to register, thick books were on the table for referencing each states requirements. Anyone who walked by us, we asked if they were registered. When we received numerous "I am already registered" responses, I was beginning to think this was another waste of time. However, after an hour into the event, we started getting people coming over to register. The Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Florida people especially made our hearts sing out with joy. One woman from Alaska came up to register too and shared her feelings about Palin reiterating all we have heard from the news and the YouTube video in this blog. What was especially exciting were the people who took up to ten applications each for friends who were not able to attend the event, but still wanted to get registered. The music was lovely with a band and a soulful singer. The lights were dimmed forcing us to have a secondary light source on our table for people to see, but it made for a dramatic event. We registered close to twenty-five people. The Embassy assistant had encyclopedic knowledge and was an excellent resource. We finally closed down by 10:30 pm, but the party was still going hot and heavy. The attendance approached 200 minimum by all who were counting, but as we were leaving, people were still arriving. As happens many times, I have reservations about commitments I make when the time approaches, but afterward, I leave with great satisfaction. Last night was a prime example.

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Catching My Attention

Two attention grabbers were in the Hungarian News Portal for English speakers. A WWII bomb was discovered on the Buda side "by accident". It was buried and had not detonated when it was dropped. It still has the potential of destroying the railroad bridge along with everything within a three mile radius. The claim is that it would shatter building windows up to ten miles away. They found another such bomb also on the Buda side, but supposedly smaller. What a relief! It is on the Buda side. The Buda boars is not a sports teem unless you are an excellent sprinter. An ex-pat family were taking their dogs for a walk in the Buda hills, sans leash. One of the dogs, a long hair dachshund decided to investigate a female boar with her babies. The fact that there are still wild boars within the city limits is enough incentive for me not to go hiking, but why would you let your dog run freely? There was no happy ending to that story. Three guests are coming today after I said my good-byes to two. Not sure whether I made a mistake and overbooked, I changed the sheets on all three beds, washed two sets of sheets, cleaned the rooms, and had hours to relax. The only hold back is waiting hostage until they show up, which I will not know when it is since their times are in their e-mails on the dead computer. If everyone arrives during the day, this evening will be spent volunteering for Democrats Abroad registering potential voters.

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Super Wednesday

In the US, it was Super Tuesday, but for us it was Super Wednesday with the time difference. Ron set his clock to wake at 6:00 am, but since we have left the States, I see politics through different lens. I woke at 3:30, could not get back to sleep, so decided to watch the results for an hour or so. I never made it back to bed; the results had me mesmerized until I had to shower and go into the university at 9:00.

Thanks to Democrats Abroad, we were able to vote in the primaries over the Internet. We had to register by January 31st and then received electronic ballot and ID numbers. Voting started at GMT + 13 hours on Tuesday, which early afternoon for us. Minutes after our eligible time, I had my vote in. Ron lagged behind for hours, with me hovering over his shoulder while he did. After he voted, I refused to speak to him for a few hours; we did not agree on our selection.

In 2004, the American Chamber of Commerce held an election function here in Budapest, which we attended. There was an overflowing pile of Democratic buttons and only a few Republican ones. Innocently, we thought this was a sign we were amongst like minds, but after pinning ourselves and joining the festivities, we found we were the minority of minorities. Others actually had the nerve to harass us for wearing the pins we did and it was not with humor either. Some were quite aggressive with their comments. Being high level executives with multinational companies from the US, it made sense at the time. Hopefully, they will host another such party this year. I am older, wiser, and have been working on honing my aggressive political skills.

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