Orderly transition

On Tuesday night, the American Embassy hosted an "election watching" party at a hotel in Reykjavík. The room was packed even before the U.S. Ambassador to Iceland took the stage. She spoke not only about the presidential election, but also about all the other issues on the ballot as well, races for governors, senators, and representatives, and other initiatives. But it was her discussion of the orderly transition of power from one president to the next that really struck me. Here in Iceland one of the main reasons they have not held parliamentary elections is that all the same people would be on the ballot anyhow, it would hardly make a difference. In the United States, when a new president comes to power, with him comes a suite of new faces, new ideas, new challenges. It is a dramatic change, every department, every office, gets new leadership and new direction. Washington D.C. literally changes overnight on January 20th. It was amazing to witness in 2000, how peaceful and deliberate a revolution can be. 

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