The tension is palpable, in New York and in Washington DC. In the latter, many of our friends can’t come to my weekend event because they are going to be going from house to house in Virginia, a swing state, canvassing for Obama. Last Sunday two white supremacist guys have been picked up with guns and an idea of shooting Obama and other ‘black’ kids.

The political comedy shows, the false news as they are often called, are bursting at the seams with new material from the heated and protracted campaign. I am told that a lot of young people, who never watch the actual news and never read the papers, in fact get all their news from these. We don’t have anything like that in our 300 TV channels. This is a very clever mixture of real TV news clips of politicians and the newscaster weaving comments and stories interspersed with these and with on line conversations with their other ‘analysts’ on wall street and at the White House.

One of the most popular feature films running at this time – coincidence??? – is W by Oliver Stone, a fictional but factual biography of the current Bush. It is very funny and very frightening. The look-alikes, except for Tony Blair, are striking, and one is left thinking, with pumping heart, “Is this low IQ person, the one who has been ruling the world and deciding on the fates of millions for the past eight years? Who has been bombing thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, because he is trying to prove to his father that he is not a failed and stupid son?”

Another movie, this one a documentary called Religulous (religion and ridiculous) by political comedian Bill Maher, is also making the rounds in all the mainstream theatres. Once again funny and frightening it blows apart the religious beliefs and ridicules the rituals and rules of three of the world’s big religions – Christianity, Islam and Judaism. It shows up the cant, the hypocrisy and the ignorance and idiocy of many beliefs and the absurdity of many things the priests and heads of them are spouting. I only heave a sigh of relief that he has left Hinduism out, for otherwise every one from Togadia to Thakerey senior and juniors, the heads of various Mutts and Bajrang Dal thugs would be chasing him and fulminating with Hindutva fatwas. Luckily, here people take it with a sense of humour and tolerance. No burning trishul brigades outside the cinemas.

It is strange but not surprising to see right wing voters from the middle belt talking to TV hosts about Obama as the threat to “America as we know it”. But do they know it? The same question as I ask of Indians when they say “Yeh hamari Sanskriti nahin hei”. Joe The Plumber, the Republican’s icon of the “real” American no longer downs Bourbon and eats red meat by the pound. He apparently eats Arugula salad and focaccios at the small town restaurant, and is concerned by the poisoning of his child’s Chinese toy. So the real American that is being addressed is not quite the beefy guy that Ms Palin appeals to when she poses with the carcasses of 20 Caribou she has shot in one fell swoop.

During a hot political and foreign policy discussion with an American friend, we were asked, “Why do you hate Americans so much?” Do we? Or are we just concerned that the ‘my naval is the universe and I am god’s keeper of all things good” attitude displayed by so many Republican Presidents and politicians has much further reaching ramifications than the American people realize? That we know, that even if America is no longer the official top of the pack, our own mental make up will continue having us, and much of the world, make them the standard of all things wise and wonderful?

A sobering thought, for them, but especially for us. Two days to go. So keep your fingers crossed. But one last word - for all its inward looking focus, this IS a democracy where free speech and freedom of expression are alive. And the people say and do what they must without the lurking fear of TADA or POTA or the CBI or....or....The fearful days of the Macarthy era are dead and gone. Are we listening in India?

DNA November 2nd, 08 .