Leader for the free world - any takers?

The American Presidential race is not something that I thought I'd ever be writing on. I am not an American citizen, have very little understanding of the system and, to my embarrassment, consistently get confused as to which candidate is from which party.

What has struck me however is that in a country of 300 million people, which leads the way for much of the rest of the world, I would expect to find candidates for the Presidency about whom it is possible to get excited - something which can hardly be said about either Bush or Kerry.

Whether I agree with Bush's foreign or domestic policy or not, the fact that he doesn't appear to be able to string a coherent sentence together is rather worrying to me and the fact that the Democratic Party (think I got that right) has fielded a candidate so lacklustre that he trails such a controversial President by so much in the polls is more worrying still.

Watching coverage from the States I get the feeling that there is general apathy towards the electoral process. America is the one country where the choices made by the voters can actually have an effect on the wider world. Whilst it is quite clear that if any other country decides it wants to change world events, it would be hard pushed to actually do anything. If the US decides to tackle an issue, it can do so and can pretty much ignore what the rest of the world thinks.

This T-shirt (WARNING - the site it's on is very rude, very politically incorrect and very, very funny) sums things up - "Do we have to have a President?"

The US election should be something that the world gets excited about because it is a choice that has the potential to create waves around the entire world. I have no clue how the current sad state of affairs arose but look back with fondness to the days of leaders such as Churchill, Roosevelt and Thatcher - then you really knew who was in charge!

If you have a few minutes why not tickle, punch and torture George Dubya or John Kerry?

Gilly