I’m always amazed when I look at the American presidential campaigns. Because they’re so different from our own. I know, we don’t have Presidents, we have a Queen, God bless her, and no-one votes for her. But we have Prime Ministers and that role has certainly, over the last 20 or so years, become much more ‘presidential’ than before.

Our electoral system votes for individuals in local areas. And the party that ends up with the most individuals becomes the government. The leader of the governing party is the PM, but it is essentially the party that you vote for, or your individual MP. You don’t ‘vote for the PM’ directly. Which is why when Theresa May was asked whether there should be an election because ‘no-one voted for her as PM’ she could rightly say that it wasn’t necessary as the voters had the party they voted for, with just a ‘minor’ change in leadership. Issues of total changes to the manifesto that voters were given tend to be ignored at such times.

Our system reflects our ‘condition’. It is impersonal, detached and relatively calm. It is very British.

Americans are different. They’re never impersonal, detached and certainly not calm. They shout a lot. And so the presidential elections again reflect those very differences.

And they are dirty. Really dirty. And if you find a bit of ‘dirt’ you don’t just mention it, en passant, or allude to it in subtle ways. Americans do subtlety like they do irony. Instead they take out a tv advertising campaign to let the nation know of the latest dirt dug up on their foe.

Hence Hillary’s latest one about Trump’s lack of tax payment. To which he replied: “no tax paid! How clever am I??” So she said: “so clever you managed to lose a billion dollars in one year, ya shmuck!” and so it went on.

The ever-nearing election has caused a dilemma. Republicans hate Trump and Democrats hate Clinton. A bit of a problem. But faced with horrible choices they’ll vote along party lines. Because the core values to Americans are what’s important. Security (Trump wants to build walls and get rid of ‘foreigners’, even ones born there, which is most of the population at some point), more guns (very Republican), anti-abortion (Republican), or pro-‘choice’ (Democrat), keeping the KKK (Republican), providing welfare (Democrat).

What’s odd is that you only ever see Hillary and Don only talking to their own supporters. Singing to the choir. I suppose we all need to feel the lurve.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx