I don't follow politics, but I know one thing from being on this board... You Americans sure are passionate about them...
Really? I disagree completely. At least about American's in general being passionate about politics.
In reality, most Americans could care less about them. And out of the ones that do show some small amount of interest in it, the vast majority have no idea what they're talking about, what's actually going on, any of the details of pending/passed/etc. legislation, who's who in politics (outside of the major contenders), etc. All in all, American's really don't care. Sure they will make comments on message boards or Facebook or Twitter, but usually just general things that would directly affect them. But when it comes to putting forth effort into doing research or god forbid do something that involves going outside of the house, we are extremely apathetic. If I recall correctly, only about 50% of eligible voters actually go out and vote for the PRESIDENT. That means that half of our country can't even go out and spend an hour or two to decide who they want to run the country for the next four years. And don't get me started on local/county/state elections. I would be surprised if the number averaged 10-20%. The ones that do vote probably only vote for whomever they saw the most billboards for.
Compared to most other countries, I think we have horrible political awareness and activity. I remember going to Belize for a trip, and the people there were exponentially more involved in politics, even at a local level. Everyone we spoke to was happy to talk about various issues. Each town, in general, supported a certain political party (there were two major ones) and were quite vocal about it. I believe many other countries have a similar mentality.
I think Americans, by and large, are spoiled. While our two major parties have different agendas and points of view on a wide variety of issues, it's not like anything major is going to change depending on who wins. Sure, if Obama lost we wouldn't have passed the Obamacare bill, which has an impact on the majority of people, but I'm talking about changing the way of life for a person. In many countries, especially ones that went through recent political unrest or have shakier governments, politics are a huge factor in day to day life. People will kill over elections. And the voter turnout is significantly greater.
Americans are more concerned with who wins American Idol then the presidency.