AREN'T THEY ALL SUPPOSED TO HATE US?:

A triple whammy of soft power sees the world in thrall to Super Tuesday (Timothy Garton Ash, February 7, 2008, The Guardian)

In the early 21st century, American presidential elections have become the political equivalent of the football World Cup. Half the planet watches on television. Everyone recognises the star players and most know the rules of the game. Strike up a conversation with a complete stranger in any bar in any city on any continent, and you can be fairly sure the talk will turn to this. "Who are you backing, Hillary or Obama?" is, at least for Europeans, an almost universal opener, perhaps even a chat-up line. In a media world at once increasingly connected and increasingly fragmented according to special interests, it's so nice to find one topic that everyone has in common.

Probably we don't know the rules of the American game as well as we think, but it's amazing what knowledge of American politics British reporters take for granted. Yesterday morning I heard a BBC radio correspondent say: "Remember, of course, that Ohio is a swing state in American elections." Of course. [...]

[I]t's a triple whammy of soft power: the soft power of democracy, the soft power of the media, and the soft power of America. The notion of soft power is much misunderstood, especially on this side of the Atlantic, where Europe's alleged soft power is often contrasted with the US's hard power. But according to Joseph Nye, the leading academic proponent of the concept, the essence of soft power is the ability to attract. And people are drawn irresistibly to the American presidential race because it's like an exciting horse race or a well-made soap opera. This is precisely the kind of power that the political institutions of the EU most spectacularly lack.

As with Desperate Housewives or HBO's mesmering series The Wire, not to mention The West Wing, the reality show we call The American Election has - this time particularly - a cast of strong, contrasting, remarkable characters: Hillary, Obama, McCain, the egregious Mitt and the folksy Huckabee. (As in all good soap opera, one name only is required for most of the characters.) Moreover, the heart of the competition is not between contrasting policies, ideologies or visions. These will become more important once it is a straight Democrat-Republican general election this autumn, but for now these primaries are mainly about individual characters selling versions of themselves - and telling stories about themselves and America.