Sadly, I feel the same way - helpless - and I'm American! I'm regularly horrified by the way elections turn out here. 8 years of Bush has been a disaster for the US and the world. 4-8 more years of Republican rule would really be awful. I think a lot of people won't vote for Obama because he's black. (most would never admit that) The anti-intellectual "argument" works really well here. It's amazing. Palin is really working the "I'm just an average small-town American" thing. As if educated people are somehow unfit to be President. Makes no sense at all. I don't want my next-door neighbor to be president - I want someone who's smarter, more capable than the rest of us to be president. No, I don't want an average "hockey mom" who loves to procreate and hunt as president. See my page for my own rant about her (written a couple of days ago, before her speech).