From January to November last year, the British media (none more than this website) paid a huge amount of attention to the US presidential election. It would be foolish to expect it to be reciprocated – for reasons of economic and military clout, and George Bush's greater capacity for divisiveness than any of his British counterparts – but the American bloggers, at least some of them, are watching.
A search on politics.feedster.com (which trawls through the latest postings from US political blogs) gives the tenor: Tony Blair has called an election and is likely to win. Pejmanesque puts a likely victory down to the Blair government doing "what most people think is a good and competent job at running the country" and the weakness of the opposition, but concedes that recent Tory poll showings may make it more of a nailbiter. Andrew Sullivan writes that it no longer looks like such a "shoo-in" for New Labour.
Glenn Reynolds makes no claim on the result, but does have a few words to say on what he thinks will be the likely post-result spin in the US press, to which he ascribes the usual liberal agenda.
"If Blair loses or does badly, the press will say that the election was a referendum on the Iraq war and Bush. If Blair does better than expected, the press will say that the election was about local issues of no greater significance. (Either way, resentment of the Blair government's position on the EU and immigration will be largely ignored.)"
It is equally reasonable to assume that a Blair victory will be hailed by the US rightwing bloggers as a vindication of Mr Bush and a triumph for the coalition of the willing, much as was John Howard's re-election in Australia.
Daily Kos puts the US president back into the equation too, quoting from a focus group that measured second-by-second reaction to a recent White House press conference where Mr Bush and Mr Blair stood next to each other. The focus group response plummeted into negative territory before either man had spoken. The comments section is filled with disbelief that either Mr Blair or Silvio Berlusconi could remain in office after entering into alliance with Mr Bush. Even when US blogs are talking European domestic politics, there is little escape from the man in White House.
