Election Drama Could Be Worse

In the last few weeks, Baltimore County's election atmosphere has gotten pretty crazy. We've seen candidates challenging others on advertising claims, we've seen candidates air eachother's dirty laundry, we've seen endorsements fly every which way.

But you know what occurred to me Monday afternoon as I drove circles around town looking for sign-waving politicians? What we haven't seen—megaphones, campaign vans and snazzy uniforms.

In June, right before I officially joined Patch, I took a two-week vacation to Japan. Japan has a legendarily wild political system, fueled by antiquated and convoluted election laws.

While I was somewhere over Canada on my way to Tokyo, prime minister Yukio Hatoyama called it quits in the fallout from breaking a campaign promise to get American officials to close a base on the island of Okinawa.

What followed was a political firestorm, a slight (and welcome for this tourist) currency devaluation and general confusion until Naoto Kan took the post as the new prime minister. But barely a month later was the House of Councilors election. The House of Councilors is to the Japanese parliament roughly what the U.S. Senate is to Congress. So it's kind of a big deal.

But instead of advertisements everywhere, campaigns are restricted to giving short speeches on the public broadcaster NHK, and the use of pamphlets and other paraphernalia is somewhat restricted. So like many things in the Land of the Rising Sun, they get creative.

This is where the trucks come in, or as I like to call them, the Political Party Vans. Fringe parties with nothing better to do dress up in flashy uniforms, grab megaphones and drive through urban and rural streets blasting their message over and over.

One day, I took a day-trip from Tokyo to visit a friend in Kofu, the capital of Yamanashi Prefecture. We were wandering town, and everywhere we went, one of these vans was not far behind. Towards the end of my time in town, we chilled out in this square near the train station. Unsurprisingly, one of the vans decided to do the same.

One man stood watch. One held a Japanese flag. One was driving. And one hopped onto the top of the van. All of them were clad in dark blue and black uniforms. And the guy on top was shouting rhetoric at ear-piercing volumes. Three years of Japanese class clued me in that he certainly wasn't talking flowers and puppy dogs. In fact, it would best be compared to a mobile Tea Party rally.

Yet nobody was getting hyped up. Most of them seemed to go about their business. A few seemed to be chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

Imagine if American politics worked that way. One day, you'd see Kevin Kamenetz pull up by Towson Circle, hop on a car and yell about his opponent's council votes. Or you'd see retrofitted ice-cream trucks blaring "The Star Spangled Banner" and urging people to vote for the Democratic Party-approved candidates for office.

One day, a couple weeks after getting back to the States, I looked up this party that sent this crazy guy to yell from atop his Political Party Van. I wanted to see if they won any seats. As far as I know, they didn't, nor did several other notable fringe groups, including the Happiness Realization Party. It's possible that for all of the crazy things that go on in politics there, many people—like many of the Americans who choose to shun political drama—just want to be left alone.