MY SAY: US politics just as entertaining as you might expect

I WAS talking to someone the other day about my recent holiday.

I WAS talking to someone the other day about my recent holiday.

"Where did you go?" he asked.

"The US," I replied.

He gasped, looking at me as though I'd just come back from a casual jaunt to the Middle East.

"But why did you choose the US?" he asked. "There's so much political stuff happening there at the moment."

Well, yeah. That was half the point.

I'll happily talk about our upcoming July 2 federal election along with all the other nerds, but nothing Bill Shorten or Malcolm Turnbull dish out will ever match the heights of utter ridiculousness that is American politics.

We decided on the US partly because we wanted to experience the country in its chaotic election season.

We were hoping we might even be able to go to a rally - not fussy on which candidates - but Sanders, Clinton, Trump and Cruz were all in New York, campaigning for that state's primary, while we were in California.

So I'll never know what it's like to Feel the Bern or how specifically one goes about Making America Great Again.

There were signs of the imminent election everywhere.

Bernie Sanders' campaign was definitely the most visible, but interestingly not in the usual avenues.

There was no sign of him in traditional media - no billboards, no TV ads. His campaign was all about the people.

I saw Bernie 2016 stickers everywhere - on car windscreens, laptop cases, and random park benches. Babies displayed their undying commitment to the candidate on jumpsuits, young hipsters donned Bernie t-shirts in parks and cafes, and even well-dressed dogs got in on the action.

It was interesting to me because it was all user-driven. Very reminiscent of Obama's campaign in 2008.

Hillary's campaign, meanwhile, was the complete opposite.

If you were to compare the Clinton and Sanders campaigns based entirely on buzz, Hillary would look like a distant outlier rather than the likely nominee.

She was invisible. No stickers, no hype, nobody really inclined to participate in impassioned dinner table conversations about her.

It was like nobody could muster up any kind of opinion on her - positive or negative.

Cruz was still running at the time we were in the States - and the general reaction he incited was somewhere between hysterical ridicule and abject despair.

As for Donald Trump - oh, look at that, I've run out of space. What a pity.

Originally published as MY SAY: US politics just as entertaining as you might expect