One the 10th of August, The Isaac Brock Society reported difficulties in making donations from abroad to the Romney campaign, with one being unable to select the country where one lived. The Obama campaign appears to be experiencing the same issue. Did Romney hear Americans living abroad after the issue was reported? On his donation page, there is now an option to donate from abroad:
To good to be true? Let’s have a look and indeed, it has a long 
list of countries to choose from. It’s not sorted, but hey, that’s more than what the Obama campaign could do. Right on Romney! Yet, there is more to an international address than just the country, believe it or not. Other aspects of the international address need to be taken into consideration too, such as the telephone number, the zip code and even the state. You see, not all countries in the world have the same phone number format as the US. Antarctica, for example, only has 5 digits. Tasmania has 8 digits.
Yet, Romney’s campaign page expects for every country in the world to have 10 digits. In the world beyond America, one may also include the country code prefixed with a +, but Romney’s international page doesn’t like that.
Next, there is the issue with the zip code. Not all of the nations in the world have a zip code with 5 digits. Some have 4 digits and others have letters. Yet, Romney’s international page only accepts 5 digits.
Finally, not every nation in the world has 50 states named the same as the 50 US states. Some nations may have 5, 10, 35 or maybe even 66 States, and that’s not AL repeated 66 times. With some countries, one might not even need to list the state. Yet, Romney’s international page requires that one selects a US state no matter where in the world one lives.
Anyways, the Romney campaign now has an international page with an unsorted list of countries. It’s not usable yet, but it’s a good start for a big advanced nation. With maybe a bit of luck, it might even be perfected slowly over the next 4 years to become usable! Now, that’s a grand beginning for an awesome foreign policy, American-style!
*I will cast ny vote for Romney in November.
Having said that I do believe that the best hope for expats is Romney. Obama has been a massive disappointment in making clear comitments to level the playing field for Americans living abroad and then pulling out all of the stops to do just the opposite.
Some of you may remember, as I do, that day in January 1959 when Fulgencio Batista abandoned the presidency of Cuba and flew out in darkness of the the early hours of January 1 into exile. Most of the population was elated that Castro had won the victory. They shouted in unison “Who could be worse than Batista?”
They found out the hard way. Thank heavens we know a lot more about Romney than they knew about Castro.
@ renounceuscitizenship
I do understand the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” concept but in this case (in my humble but no vote opinion) the enemy of my enemy is my enemy. When Romney & Ryan blast into Syria (provided Obama doesn’t do it before his first term is up) and then continue on over to Iran (R&R will do anything Israel wants and Bibi & Barak really, really want Iran destroyed) … well it won’t matter one hoot what the IRS is doing to us because we will be knee deep in the big atomic muddy called WW3 and completely focused on trying to survive. Heck of a way to take your mind off your IRS problems I’d say.
*@ renounceuscitizenship
I admire your enthusiasm, yet I do not share it. I agree that the label on the Kool Aid is enticing, yet I refuse to drink it. I have come to the conclusion that there is no difference between Obama and Romney, notwithstanding the selection of the prototypical Republican Ken Doll on steroids as a running mate by the latter.
In my opinion change can only come, if a significant number of people simply withdraw support from the system.
*I agree with Em. Romney and Ryan are loyal followers of the same foreign policy that increased the national debt by trillions with unnecessary wars and I don’t understand why individuals are excluded from Romney’s talk of territorial taxation. I’ll be more than happy to vote for Romney if he listens to Ron Paul and Americans abroad.
The list of countries in Mitt Romney’s website is sorted by their ISO country code. For example:
CG Congo
CH Switzerland
CI Ivory Coast
CK Cook Islands
CL Chile
CM Cameroon
CN China
CO Colombia
The form in Barack Obama’s website changes the list of states according to the country selected.
*I just tried to register with mittromney.com using facebook. First, it states: “We were unable to identify the State that you are located with the information that you have provided.”. I then entered in my google voice phone number for sms, and then it tells me: Postal code field is required. So, I entered in the zip of my mail forwarder. Then I clicked on “contact us”, “Policy Information” and now it wants again for me to enter the address of my mail forwarder. Here I entered in my Swiss address with its New Hampshire postal code (result of prefixing it with a ‘0’). then, I selected “foreign policy” and submit. Then, it says: “Your submission has been received by Romney for President. Thank you for your interest.”
That wasn’t what I wanted, so I go back, select “other”, enter in my Swiss address with the zip, city and country in the city name field, skipped the zip and state and then I entered in the following comment:
“Why are individuals excluded from territorial taxation?”
I bet that my question will never be answered. Romney will eagerly wage an expensive war against Iran, Russia and China for Israel, but he won’t do jack doodly squat for Americans living abroad. Normally, American patriots would describe this as “traitor”, but in America it is patriotic to screw Americans living abroad, and with “screw”, I’m making no reference to sex.
*In response to my inquiry on Romney’s foreign policy, I was advised to visit his foreign policy. There, he has a huge section where he demonstrates his unconditional loyalty to Israel, but nothing about Americans abroad. He states that he will strongly condemn any American with the anti-Semite label, even if they don’t hate any Semites, if they lift a finger against his beloved Israel:
He stresses that America needs a president who will serve Israel.
But he makes no mention of serving Americans living abroad. Why is Israel more important to Romney than the American people?
So, I then clicked on “A Strategy to Secure America’s Enduring Interests and Ideals”. In there, he talks a lot about being a huge and aggressive military power, he talks a lot about terrorism and condemns Obama for being apologetic. He wants to cut taxes and increase military spending, but there is no mention of Americans living abroad.
Romney sends shivers down my spine.
The following suggest to me that it will become more difficult for americans living abroad to be US citizens:
The document is summarized with his main priorities:
1. A big expensive navy
2. Loyalty to Israel
3. War against Iran for Israel
4. A big expensive National Missile Defense System
5. Oil from the middle east
6. Make Cuba and Venezuela US puppet regimes
7. Afghanistan has opium but no oil
8. Military internet activity
This guy will help Americans living abroad with territorial taxation for corporations only?
To anyone out there who thinks that voting for either of these shitstains is a good idea… you’re fooling yourselves.
Some overseas voter demographics from Brian Knowlton:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/us/politics/votes-from-expatriates-could-play-crucial-role-in-election.html?_r=1
@bubblebustin, What I took away from the Times piece was the lack of enthusiasm for the next US election. I think Dan’s comment kind of sums up what I’ve been hearing in the US and outside of it. People are not hopeful that the situation in the US is fixable. I was floored to get an email recently from someone I know well, a very Right-wing, very patriotic sort, who simply said that anyone outside the US right now should have the good sense to stay there since he’s convinced that things are going to get a lot worse very soon. Interestingly enough this Republican gave me the same argument in favor of Romney as my Democrat friends have given me in favor of Obama: Sure, our guy isn’t great but the other guy is worse. That’s pathetic.
@bubblebustin: that article is exactly the type of statist propaganda one would expect from NYT (or NPR). How can a newspaper as big as the NYT fail to mention FATCA and its impact on expats. Answer: they didn’t, this is just Pravda-like propaganda from the left that we have come to know and despise.
The meme for the homelanders is that all the expats are just like them, that the expats all believe that their vote will make a difference and the all expats believe the fantasy that the US government is democratically elected and legitimate.
@ Confederate: Did you see that an editor resigned with a missive saying that the NYT was too biased? LOL.
For what it’s worth I threw out a few words on the Flophouse today:
http://thefranco-americanflophouse.blogspot.fr/2012/08/the-2012-election-and-us-expatriate-vote.html
@victoria
Maybe the US is becoming more receptive to other choices, seeing the current two are only interested in rearranging the deck chairs?
@confederationH,
If you haven’t read other pieces by Brian Knowlton, I would suggest you do so before you form an opinion of him:
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/k/brian_knowlton/index.html
Gary Johnson, Libertarian, poses a real threat to be a spoiler for Romney:
Mr. Johnson said he had no problem being labeled a potential spoiler in an election that he views as “a debate between Coke and Pepsi.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us/politics/gary-johnson-the-libertarian-partys-presidential-nominee-worries-republicans.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&hp
a few bullet points:
During grade school, we always nominated as many from the opposing party (the girls) to run in the class president race, while holding only one candidate from our party (the boys). It worked every time—too bad the Republicans didn’t think of supporting the Green Party. ////
Don’t forget that the dems & repubs also used all their donation money to buy their own debate for only 2 parties and excluded any others.
The only people who want to commute the sentences of dope smokers is their uncles, wives, mothers, children, and friends. The Majority Rulers want to keep those people in jail forever and put non-patriots in the poorhouse. It doesn’t matter that they are bankrupting themselves in order to perform the persecution.
My letters to Republican Senators and Reps have all been tossed in the Looney Bin. I had noted that they needed to say something to attract the votes of emigrants and immigrants and that the Libertarian was a viable alternative for them.