The American presidential election is rapidly approaching and, as an American myself, I’d like to say that I’m proud of how we show the world how democracy should be done. I’d like to say that but I can’t. American politics has devolved to such a low level that we’re probably just weeks away from Taiwan-style fistfights on the floor of Congress. Hardcore ideology and partisanship seems to have replaced hardcore patriotism.

Regardless of where you stand on the issues, I can’t imagine that anyone with an ounce of intelligence can sit there and watch the nonsensical charges being tossed back and forth between the candidates for public office. With so many critical issues at stake this year, why can’t they discuss the issues rather than who put which color lipstick on what pig?

Six months ago the people who are paid to pundit about these kinds of things were predicting a fabulous election campaign. McCain and Obama are two intelligent, honorable men, they told us, and will debate the finer points of the various issues like gentlemen. Hah! As if.

At the beginning of the summer, a statement from McCain’s campaign read, in part, “John McCain will continue to run on his principles and will focus on the future of our country … he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues.” But a funny thing happened on the way to November 4th. McCain has been consistently trailing in the opinion polls. Apparently October will be mud-slinging month, as McCain now feels the key issue is no longer the current economic meltdown, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, immigration or taxes. According to John McCain, the key issue we are facing this year is, “Who is Obama, really?”

McCain’s campaign has been one of the odder ones in recent years in a lot of ways. Can anyone tell me the last time a candidate announced he was canceling his campaign in a time of crisis? Is the man unable to multi-task? And then by canceling a scheduled appearance on the David Letterman show and turning up in an interview with Katie Couric, all he managed to do was give Letterman a chance to rant – a rant which has received more than 4 million views on YouTube.

But all of that is the kind of stuff that would be forgotten about relatively quickly. What we’ll remember for decades is the nomination of Sarah Palin for Vice President. McCain prides himself on being all mavericky, yet he let his party’s elders tell him he could not have the candidate he wanted and was instead forced to go with the current Alaska governor, a woman he had met precisely once.

Here’s a woman who didn’t even own a passport until a year ago (much like George W. Bush, so if you like Bush, maybe that’s a good thing) and to cite her foreign policy credentials reminded us that Russia and Alaska are just a few miles apart. Sarah Palin believes that men and dinosaurs walked the earth at the same time. Sarah Palin believes that if a deviant rapes his own 12 year old daughter and she gets pregnant, the daughter should carry that baby to term. (Hey, Alaska! How did you vote for this dingbat? What’s wrong with you guys? Frostbitten brains or what?)

There are thousands of others in the Republican party more qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency – there are other prominent female Republicans with far more experience across the board. Ever hear of Condoleeza Rice? Oh, but rumors have it that she wasn’t chosen because other rumors have it that she’s gay, as if that would make any difference in her ability to do the job. (But wait, black, female, gay … and Republican? Surely no one’s that stupid.) By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has essentially dropped his pants and mooned the entire country. But in a sense, it’s consistent with many other Republican VP choices through the years – Richard Nixon (the only US president to resign to avoid impeachment), Spiro Agnew (the only US vice president to resign to avoid criminal prosecution) and Dick Cheney.

Why do I get the feeling that if someone asked Ms. Palin to detail her stance on Kashmir, she’d say that she loves her purple cashmere sweater? Palin says it’s time that the Joe Six Packs and hockey moms are represented in Washington and that may or may not be true but I don’t want to be represented by some illiterate drunk. It’s sad but it seems that in the United States, being smart is no longer as desirable as being cute.

Here’s the level that the campaign has descended to, in case you missed it in the newspapers. The New York Times ran an article about former radical Bill Ayers turned university professor, author and education expert, and how he and Obama know each other, worked together on some charities and a school board project, but are not close.

The very next day, Ms. Palin read a speech in which she cited that article and said, “Our opponent though is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.” If this was an “election” in Singapore, Obama could sue Palin for slander.

Now it’s not that I think Obama is a saint. He’s relatively young and inexperienced for this job. But after 8 disastrous years of George Bush, there’s simply no way that I could cast my vote for a candidate who essentially wants to continue Bush’s systematic destruction of the United States and everything it stands for. I’d sooner vote for a washing machine – its spin cycle would be much less destructive. And the polls have showed, even as Bush edges closer to a single digit approval rating, that more Americans agree with Obama’s stand on key issues than McCain’s.

And yet, McCain can still win. And the reason is quite sad. Racism. Is America truly ready to elect a person of color to the Oval Office? Most sane people would think that the pigment of one’s skin shouldn’t have anything to do with one’s qualifications for a job. But in the United States, it still seems to matter. Of course the U.S. isn’t the only country with racism in the world, but no other nation tries to position itself as this shining light of freedom and equality, no other nation was built on the words “all men are created equal.”

And that’s the point of that speech by Palin. She’s attempting to lure votes by polarizing the entire country, by pointing a finger at Obama and questioning his patriotism, questioning how American he truly is, with that dark skin and that funny name. Why debate on the merits of the issues when it’s easier to appeal to baser instincts? The audience she’s playing to consists of people like those students at George Fox University, a so-called Christian university, who on September 23rd lynched Obama in effigy.

Sure there are plenty of these gun-toting far right extremist militant inbred backwoods redneck shit kickers around, and they get more than their fair share of attention. But there’s also this huge group of people who remain racist even though they know that it’s wrong and would never publicly admit to it. I suspect there are uncounted thousands of people out there who will tell a pollster that his or her choice is Obama, but when it gets down to it, when that person is alone in the voting booth, he or she is going to start picturing that caricature of the Obamas from the New Yorker magazine cover and reach up with sweaty palms and cast their vote for grandpa and the Barbie doll. I’d like to think that we’ve gotten past that, that we’ve grown up, but I suspect we’re not quite there yet.

But whomever you choose, and for whatever reason you’ve made that choice, I strongly urge all American residents of Hong Kong to fulfill your duty as a citizen and vote. The only vote wasted is the vote not cast.