LAST week, I witnessed the American vice-presidential debate unfold here at the American Club. It was a full house with mostly Americans living in Singapore who turned up to watch Republican and Democratic debaters lock horns on issues close to home while being quite far from it. 

As a Singaporean following the US elections vicariously, I realised that my perception of a country clearly split betwen the Democrats and Republicans is quite erroneous.

The dichotomous presentation of Democrat-versus-Republican in the media had given me a rather skewed perception that there is a strict divide between the two camps and their members don't mix, much less get along.

Supporters of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin yell towards supporters (not in photo) of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as they wait to get into her campaign rally at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California on Oct 04, 2008. -- PHOTO: AFP

Democratic supporters display placards at the Home Depot Centre where Republican vice presidential cadidate Sarah Palin hold a campaign rally in Carson on October 4, 2008. -- PHOTO: AFP

Republicans are red, and Democrats are blue. Republicans are conservative, Democrats are liberals. Republicans are pro-life, Democrats are pro-abortion. 

The list could go on, and one living outside the US, watching these images would think that members of the two camps are ineminently hostile towards each other.

But the Americans I met at the debate proved me quite wrong. While the cheers and applause during the debate marked out who was in which camp, the democrats didn't just stick to the seats on the left nor the republicans to the right, and some people who applauded the democratic debater also nodded (ever so subtly) to certain things that the Republican speaker said and vice-versa. 

The Republican debater, Mr Fussner himself mixed up "Obama" for "McCain" so many times during the debate that the audience got quite confused, and amused.

During the intermission, both democrats and republicans inter-mingled, talked, laughed and joked with each other over the liberal flow of wine and beer from the bar just outside the debate room.

 "The republican is the jolly fun guy to spend time with but not the kind of person to lead the country...but I would have a beer with all of them," Martin Stavenhagen, a Masters Student at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a democrat supporter, told The Straits Times.

Mr David Baker who was the debate moderator also mentioned after the event that while it may seem like democrats and republicans disagree on everything, "they cross aisles all the time" even at the higher level of the Senate, meaning they do agree with each other on certain issues.

At the end of the day, the division between democrat and republican is really not so rigid and the two do get along. While it looks like both sides are indelible adversaries on TV, in reality the politics does not cross into the personal realm and while Americans may be foes in politics they can be friends in life.