Hillary the Marmite candidate
Updated on 04 February 2008
There have been just 10 days between the South Carolina primary and Super Tuesday, when 22 states vote for their preferred Democratic Party nominee.
There's been less than a week between the Florida primary and the Republicans version of the same event - 22 states vote on the red side.
Depending on which party's race they're in, that's just seven or ten days for the remaining five presidential candidates to travel from one end of the United States to the other, and back - several times.
It's fly-by politicking. For all the candidates' talk of slowing global warming, the private jets get used a lot.
It's fly-by politicking. For all the candidates' talk of slowing global warming, the private jets get used a lot.
Appropriate then, that I'm typing this while flying myself. Not in private jet - I'm sorry to report ITN's budgets don't quite stretch that far - but in row 19 of a US airways jet from St Louis to Phoenix.
I've been in the States since last Wednesday - driving around a snowy Missouri soliciting the views of swing voters. Because, for all the talk of who's up and who's down, the primary ballots on Super Tuesday - in themselves - mean very little to a British audience.
What will matter profoundly, though, is who is actually elected to the presidency come November. And who is elected will depend to a remarkable extent on who they are.
That may sound banal: of course who they are matters. But it actually matters more here than in the UK where - at general elections - people vote primarily for parties, rather than personalities. In the US, it's all about personalities.
And different personalities at the top suggest very different fortunes for the parties come November.
In my survey of swingers, one thing shone out again and again.
Hillary Clinton - the Democratic frontrunner - is a 'love her or hate her' character, with lovers outnumbered about two to one. There is a visceral dislike of her among the very people who should be her core constituency.
"She just makes me feel uneasy" one young mother told me. "I just don't trust her" said a ten pin bowler on the outskirts of St Louis. "It's been Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Bush - and she wants it to be Clinton again. Let's show the world that we've got another family".
Hillary still leads polls of those likely to vote in Super Tuesday's primary; but even among Democrats I met the same reaction again and again. If Hillary is the candidate, they're worried she'll lose.
Stepping into the breach? Barack Obama: the black senator from Chicago who is the stand-out character of the campaign.
I went to see him give his speech at a rally in Chicago. Quite an event; 20 000-strong on a Saturday night. David Cameron doesn't get that.
The biggest cheer of the night? That he'd only look to the future - the dig at Hillary is that she's a symbol of the past. The sludge of the late 1990s doesn't help. "I'm not voting for Monica Lewinsky's boyfriend's wife" is how one bumper sticker puts it.
On the Republican side, John McCain is now the runaway favourite. Despite his age, he seems to have momentum on his side.
By a bit of good fortune, we decided a couple of weeks ago that Phoenix Arizona - the state McCain was senator for - would be More4's base for Super Tuesday. (And nothing, I promise, to do with the Super Bowl being in town).
McCain is holding his victory party - if that's what it turns out to be - here and suddenly it appears as though we're going to be in the one place that might well see a result. Am I speaking too soon? Tune in, find out.
