“If I didn’t vote I’d feel uncomfortable”

So said one of the local Americans who turned up to take part in last month’s (March 2008) World Wide Democratic Primary in Nice.

Throughout the Friday following “Superduper Tuesday” they came in a steady stream, young and old, men and women, working and retired, ready to have their say in the choice of November’s Democratic candidate. For the first time their party had organised for Americans abroad to vote in a primary and send delegates to the convention to be held this August in Denver. These folks were a cross-section of “Expatria”, as someone has dubbed the virtual state peopled by US citizens living overseas. They were overwhelmingly from the East and West Coasts with very few from the fly-over states (as one disdainful New Yorker put it, “those guys don’t even know where abroad is”).

“Eight nightmare years”
Why were they voting? Some, like the woman from Seattle quoted in my heading, saw it as a duty, part and parcel of being a good American. Most, however, cited specific political motives: getting rid of the Republicans after “eight nightmare years”, achieving closure of the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and so hopefully repairing the damage to America’s reputation around the world, reviving the economy, ensuring that the Supreme Court doesn’t get packed with judicial rednecks and – over and over again – finally confronting the health care issue. “I’m ashamed,” said one woman. “Four trillion dollars thrown away on that mad war and tens of millions of our citizens without medical insurance.” The turnout and the enthusiasm of those who came to the Hotel West End served to confirm the view of Joe Smallhoover, national chair of Democrats Abroad, that “this is definitely a blue state”. The Nice primary was very well organised – all credit to local DA chair Samantha Timmerman and her team – and was also an agreeable social occasion. And what was the outcome? Votes went three to one in favour of Barack Obama showing local democrats to be ahead of many expats elsewhere in their enthusiasm for the junior senator from Illinois; worldwide he got 65 per cent of the vote.

But what of the Republicans? Locally, they’re in a state of disarray and have no formal grouping. At one time they were chaired by a James P. Duffy III, a Monaco-based lawyer, who transited from permanent resident to intermittent visitor. After a spell as legal advisor to fraudster Bill Fogwell, he got into serious trouble with the Monegasque authorities and towards the end of last year got a prison sentence for misappropriating a client’s funds. Before serving his time he slipped away from te Principality. As one philosophical Republican said to me, “I don’t think Jim will be eating lunch in this town again. We’ll just have to pick ourselves up for 2012.”  P.K.H.

From Riviera Reporter Issue 126: April/May 2008

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