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The Times – In praise of US democracy<br/> The world is gripped by a remarkable American election

The New Hampshire primary has drawn surprise at the impressive victories of Hillary Clinton and John McCain and a malicious delight in the comprehensive confusion among the pollsters. In addition, however, they have also evoked an emotion that recently has been all too rare in outsiders’ assessments of the United States: open admiration for a political process that, more than anywhere, is a triumph of the democratic ideal. For all the patronising foreign commentaries on the influence of money, interest groups and sectarian fundamentalists, for all the sneering by cynical Europeans at American politicians’ clichés and voters’ naivety, this election is proving to be as robust and searching as any democratic contest anywhere in the world.

As Matt Drudge, the internet’s most restless political junkie, put it: “Now it gets fun!” Indeed. It is not simply the array of the candidates that has excited outsiders as much as Americans, raising the prospect of the first black, the first female, the first Mormon or the oldest contender to enter the White House; it is that in their diversity, the candidates have represented all hues of American opinion, with all its crude vigour, commitment and engagement in the political process. How many other countries can engage their electorates in this way? How much hope, passion and commitment were generated by the non-election to pick Tony Blair’s successor, the stultifying contest for the non-post of Labour Party deputy leader or the bickering to chose a successor to Sir Menzies Campbell?

Hmph.