Not a Train

One of the big differences between the political calendar in the U.S. and that of Canada is the regularity of elections. In the U.S., we know when they're coming. Even in the midst of electoral madness and the darkness of bad governance, get out your calendar: there's a light at the end of the tunnel up ahead, a measurable distance away. Up here, not so much.

Knowing when elections fall is, of course, a mixed blessing. For example, members of the U.S. House of Representatives are campaigning pretty much all the time. Their two-year cycle means they're either making promises or paying back their supporters. Senators have six years between campaigns. That's enough time to forget how grueling and problematic campaigning (like childbirth) is, so they do it again.

When you're not a big fan of the sitting president, which is a fairly common malady south of the border (a recent CBS poll puts dissatisfaction with the present course of the U.S. at 75%), the deadline is also a mixed blessing. On one hand, you know the length of time you must be prepared to endure before you get to hire someone else. On the other, even one year can seem like an awfully long time.

However, in one week, we'll be able to start the countdown--one year to the next inauguration of a U.S. president. Inauguration Day will be a banner day for my family.

You see, all I wanted for my 2004 birthday--which fell on election day that year--was a new president. I didn't get what I wanted. (Actually, I said I really wanted the one we'd originally elected in 2000 to be able to take office. I didn't get that either, but he's having a better career anyway.) After the 2004 election, my father set as a goal to outlive the current president. He didn't quite make it, but he lived long enough to happily support nearly the entire current crop of Democratic candidates.

It will be nice to see both of those dreams realized, if not quite on the timetable we would have preferred. And even if the U.S. elects another Republican, I will still say this: that light I can see, the one at the end of the tunnel? No way is it a train. I am confident of that.