“These two blokes are running for what now?”

“This means that Bush is going to be your next president, right?”

“So, explain this all again. It’s bleeding confusing…”

On and on it goes, every time a report on the American presidential races comes on the telly, er TV. The people of British, Canadian, Chinese and Californian extraction are full of questions about what’s going on. During this time, as an American political science student, I’m a marked man.

I do my best to explain: “Bill Bradley and Al Gore are running to be the Democratic nominee for president; Bush has a long way to go before becoming president; and yes, the whole primary system is confusing as hell.”

The making of an American president has got to be one of the most technically convoluted processes in modern politics. These people seem to think I’ve got it committed to memory.

The inquisition began, conveniently enough, with Iowa. The seminar instructor for my public policy class said, “You’re from Iowa, Chris, why don’t you tell the class what a caucus is.”

I had a very vague idea and gave it my best shot. When I was finished a student asked, “So then they do this in all fifty states? Everyone goes to someone’s house, has a cup of tea and picks who they want for president?”

Not exactly. I told him that most states have a reasonably sane method of picking delegates to the national conventions. Iowa is an exception.

“Well, why does Iowa get to go first?” was the reply.

That’s a good question. A lot of people over here think it’s odd that states they didn’t even know existed get first shot at selecting a president.

I try to justify the staggered elections by mentioning that it gets the candidates to parts of the country that would otherwise never see a presidential campaign.

As I went on, I found it hard to convince even myself that what I was saying was true. Especially the part about how it would have been a bad thing if Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander had spent the last four years in some other part of the country.

No one here understands why New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Delaware have a go at king-making before any of the big guys like Texas or California get a chance. Delaware even threw me for a loop. I was sure it had been annexed by Maryland sometime in the ’70s.

It makes sense that campaigns want to start off taking small states one at a time. This keeps the overhead relatively low and allows candidates who aren’t George Bush, Jr. to put up a bit of a fight before being outspent in every way imaginable.

Fortunately, the objectives involved in primary electioneering are easier to explain to my newly cosmopolitan mix of friends.

I tell them that where these first elections take place matters little in the grand scheme of things. Whether it’s Iowa and New Hampshire or Oregon and New Mexico, the goal is the same: scare people.

If you’re a Republican you must invoke nightmares of the tax bogeyman.

Convince the primary voters that your opponent tells worse ghost stories than you and you’ll get the nod.

Democrats are charged with stirring the spirits of the starving children and senior citizens across the nation. It also helps to be able to raise the dead for that important Chicago vote.

On a more culinary note my neighbors had a Mexican food fiesta Saturday night.

Mexican food is one of the things I miss most about home. It just doesn’t exist over here. I’d give my left eye for a chalupa right now. When the girls across the hall came over and invited us over for some nachos and tacos, I nearly burst with excitement. Memories of that place in Ames where none of the waiters speak English and you’re served various alcoholic beverages you didn’t order sprung to mind.

Unfortunately, my excitement was short-lived. Despite taping three or four real chili peppers to the wall, the food selection was distinctly English.

Not that they didn’t try, bless their hearts. The English guests were fooled, and I think my Canadian roommate was, too, but what do they know?

In conferring with Lindsay, who’s from California, we came to the conclusion that the fiesta was about as Mexican as cricket. But it was fun anyway.

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Chris Crouch is a junior in political science from Rapids City, Ill.