Apathy? Antipathy?

An editorial cartoon this week shows a beaver (an explanation for those whose minds head elsewhere: the beaver is a symbol of Canada) turning off a TV reporting on an impending national election in Canada; the beaver then turns its attention to a TV reporting on the impending national election in the U.S.

Is the cartoon true? Certainly to some extent. The primary process seems to fascinate people up here, partly because they can't believe they understand caucuses. (If you're used to anonymous ballots, the caucusing "process" really is kind of hard to get your mind around.)

So why are Canadians interested in our political life? Perhaps Canadians believe that the election in the U.S. is important and will have far-reaching consequences to us up north. Perhaps economic fears up here (strong dollar = loss of manufacturing jobs) make anything important to the health of the U.S. economy more riveting. Maybe Canadians aren't willing to give up their schadenfreude: they have felt joy in watching the agony of U.S. politics for so many years, and they can't pretend their lives are better if they acknowledge that they may soon be embroiled in the same.

Or, gee: is it because any election this spring in Canada would be a contest between two forty-something, wonky white guys named Steve?

That's my personal theory--when the contest is between "something different" and "more of the same," the "something different" is more compelling to watch. To me, anyway.

And yes, I did notice that I used "us," "we," and "our" to refer both to Canada and to the U.S. Nothing like politics to make one straddle the border.