It's very valuable and absorbing to be in DC during this season of primaries and caucuses and endless conversations. Unlike Max who has decided he will no longer vote in US elections, I'm going to exercise my right as a US citizen. I still haven't found out how to get an absentee ballot now that we don't have a permanent residence in the US but I'm sure there's a way. I seem to be watching the downfall of Hillary, the rise of Obama and the steady presence of McCain as Republican frontrunner. The word "hate," until now reserved for Bush, seems to be used fairly frequently by Democrats who detest Clinton. Obama draws the warm fuzzies who love "hope" and "change." McCain, despite worries some have about his hot temper, is the controlled voice of experience.
I recommend reading David Gerlernter"s small book called "Americanism--the Fourth Great Western Religion." He traces the American self-evident credo of Liberty, Equality and Democracy back to the Puritans who turned it into American Zionism. Puritans transformed chosenness in the Old Testament to chosenness of themselves in their new land. Much has happened since the Puritans, but the United States continues to hold to a sense of mission and responsibility. Lincoln expressed this most memorably in his second inaugural and Gettysburg Address.