Out of the frying pan...

One thing that makes suffering through a Toronto heat wave more bearable is the knowledge that it's not half as stifling as New Orleans. Three years ago that city almost drowned. Now I think it might melt.

The heat and humidity of Louisiana's Gulf Coast was just one of the things I learned about during my recent week-long sojourn through the Southern U.S. It wasn't so much about learning brand-new facts - anyone can guess that New Orleans is hot and most people have some idea that middle America is fraught with racial and class tension and extremely devoted to both God and guns - but the trip brought these facts to life in a way that only first-hand experience can.

There's too much to unpack for one blog post, so expect stuff to trickle out over the next few days and weeks. But I thought I'd lead off with a couple of small insights I got from talking to folks about the upcoming U.S. election. I didn't dedicate as much time to this research as I thought I might, but did get a couple of points of view that I thought were worth noting.

At a flea market in Ohio, I bought an Obama for President baseball cap from a vendor and decided to chat him up a bit. It turned out that Ousmane was from Senegal and, though he'd lived in the States for more than a decade, wasn't a citizen with voting rights. Nevertheless, he had lots of opinions on Obama, race and the election. A year ago, he wouldn't have taken a bet that a non-white candidate would have a chance to be president, but his thinking on that has shifted since Obama won the nomination. Ousmane said he'd talked to many people - black, white and other - who planned to vote Democratic, so he liked Obama's odds. And rather than race, he thought Obama's biggest challenge would be meeting the toughness test.

"I think people think he won't fight," said Ousmane. Getting out of Iraq might be a good move for the country, he said, but he felt that more militaristic members of the electorate would see it as weakness. "You know McCain will fight," Ousmane added.

Down in Columbus, Mississippi, however, I talked to a middle-aged male with strong Republican leanings who nevertheless blamed the current administration for "making a mess of the country." Stephen believed the Iraq war was folly and didn't much like McCain. But he didn't have much love for Obama, either. He thought Obama would be a weak commander-in-chief and that terrorist foes would be inclined to take advantage of him. It's an argument that I think illustrates the lack of understanding so many people have of 9/11 and terrorism in general. Bin Laden doesn't give a rat's ass about which person or party's in power. I'm not sure I was able to convince Stephen of that, but he did seem to mull the idea over.

In contrast to Ousmane, Stephen thought Obama had no chance at all. When push came to shove, he said, America just wasn't ready to elect a black president. To which I responded, "I guess we'll find out."

I would have liked to find out more about what people thought, but hey, it was a vacation. One that churned out enough fodder to sustain a few more posts, I'm sure.